Philadelphia Art Alliance

Second Floor Galleries
Realms: New Ceramics by Bean Finneran
Gravity: A Glass and multimedia installation by Jon Clark and Angus Powers with sound by Jesse Daniels

First Floor Galleries
Game Boys: Photographs by Shauna Frischkorn
Bachelor Portraits: Photographs by Justyna Badach

Third Floor Gallery
Entelechy: Handbound books by Tara O’Brien

Satellite Gallery
The Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 W. Rittenhouse Square, 3rd Floor
Of memory [and listening]: New work by Brenton Good

Public Opening for all Exhibitions: Thursday, February 8, 2007 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to host two major exhibitions in the second floor galleries that will explore the potential of two mediums—notably ceramics and glass—and the ways in which the artists represented employ techniques and similar souces of inspiration to produce radically different results. Through a process of accumulation, both Bean Finneran and the collaborative team of Jon Clark and Angus Powers push the possibilities of their chosen media into site-specific installations. For each project, throusands of simple smaller forms, created in glass or ceramics, are used as the building blocks for the resulting large scale sculptures/site pieces. The final installations explore such ideas as organic growth, natural selection in plants and animals, and cosmology. Both challenge the inherent properties of their chosen medium, pushing the boundaries between traditional uses of ceramic and glass into the realms of sculpture and installation art.

Bean Finneran: Realms
Bean Finneran’s love of the natural world and saturated color are combined to create her abstract sculptures that are evocative of organic forms and animals, such as grasses and sea anemones. Working with a simple elemental form, a curve made from the most basic natural material,clay, Finneran builds with hundreds or thousands of these forms. The geometry of a curve weaves and allows construction, and the clay curves are each similar but unique connecting them to the natural world. The process that is used to construct the sculptures follows patterns found in nature.

Image: Bean Finneran, White Ring (detail), 2006. 18,000 curves of low fire clay, glaze, acrylic stain; Courtesy of PDX Gallery, Portland, OR. Photo: Bean Finneran.

Finneran has had solo exhibits at PDX Contemporary Art, Portland OR (2006); The Mills College Art Museum, Oakland CA (2005) Montalvo Gallery, Saratoga, CA (2003) San Jose Museum of Art (2003) Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2003); Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (2002); The Davis Art Center, Davis, CA (1999), among others. Finneran has been featured several times in American Ceramics, and in 2005 Finneran was included in the 3rd World Ceramics Biennial, sponsored by the World Ceramic Exposition Foundation in Icheon City, Korea. She has been featured in several exhibitions, most notably at: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (2005); Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco, CA (2004); Perimeter Gallery, Chicago, IL (2004).

Jon Clark and Angus Powers: Gravity The glass sculpture of Jon Clark often explores organic life forms that are evocative of reproductive elements in plants and flowers, and dynamic life forms from obscure underwater havens.		Image: Jon Clark and Angus Powers, Quantum (detail), 2005. Glass, video projection with sound by Jesse Daniels; Courtesy of the artists.
The work of Angus Powers often incorporates his interest in planetary imagery, utilizing motion and light for his sculptural work. For their installation at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, these concerns are extended into a combination of light, sound, and glass that will transform the gallery space into a moving sea of natural forms. The video for the installation incorporates reflected light recorded from nature in order to create what the artists state is “a cycle of time and energy evolution, within a framework of erupting transparent forms.” Gravity will be the third version of a project that originally debuted at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art and later at Wilkes University. The sound component was created by artist Jesse Daniels.

Jon Clark is professor, head of glass at Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia. He received an M.A. from Royal College of Art, London and has been exhibiting at Snyderman Gallery in Philadelphia since 1984. Clark has had other solo exhibitions at Wilkes University, Wilkes Barre, PA (in collaboration with Angus Powers, 2006); Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE (in collaboration with Angus Powers, 2005); Philadelphia International Airport (2004); Sanske Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland (1997), Leo Kaplan Modern, New York, NY, (2002); Anne O’Brien Gallery Washington D.C. (1986 and 1989); and Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA (1981), among dozens of other group and invitational exhibitions. Clark has received Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. His work is featured in several collections including: Corning Museum of Glass; Kunst Museum, Dusseldorf, Germany; Niijima Glass Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Tittot Museum of Glass, Taipei, Taiwan; and Museum and Gallery of Art of Western Australia, among many others.

Angus Powers received an MFA in glass at Tyler School of art, Temple University and a BFA at the New York State College of Ceramics, School of Art and Design at Alfred University. His work has been exhibited at Wilkes University, Wilkes Barre, PA (in collaboration with Angus Powers, 2006); Genesee Community College, Batavia, NY (2006); Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE (2005); Noyes Museum of Art, Oceanville, NJ (2005) and Rosemont College, Rosemont, PA (2003), among others. He has received the Creative Glass Center of America Fellowship (2003), two Contemporary Glass Philadelphia Grants (2001 and 2003), and most recently won the Glass Art Society Emerging Artist Award (2004). Powers is currently a visiting assistant professor at the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, NY and has taught in the sculpture department at Rosemont College and the glass department at Tyler School of art at Temple University.

First floor Gallery A
Game Boys: Photographs by Shauna Frischkorn

Shauna Frischkorn’s series Game Boys reflects a youth culture obsession with video games and the investment of masculinity in gaming culture. Depicting how gender differences affect practices and the pleasures afforded by game-playing, these portraits also serve to question of subject/object positions of both the subject and the viewer.

Todd (playing Test Drive ), C-Print, 24 x 20 inches, 2003

Capturing the intense concentration of teenage boys during gaming, the portraits do not reflect the gaze of the sitter, as reflected in traditional portraiture. Rather, the severe expressions of each player is suggestive of Late Renaissance paintings depicting saints in states of ecstasy or rapture. This is further served by the lighting and composition that seem akin to the affects of heightened chiaroscuro observed in work of that period.

Frischkorn received an MFA in photography from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a MA in communication arts from Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA. Frischkorn has had solo exhibitions at Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster PA (2004); Sykes Gallery, Millersville University, Millersville, PA (2002); Center for the Arts, SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY (1998); and the Chautauqua Center for the Visual Arts, Chautauqua, NY. Some recent group exhibitions include: Outside the Centers/On the Edge, Pennsylvania State traveling exhibition (2006); AIM V: SYZYGY, University of Southern California School of Fine Arts, Pasadena, CA (2004); Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Lancaster, PA (2003); College of New Jersey Art Gallery, Ewing, NJ (2002); and The Print Center, Philadelphia (1997). She has received a Special Opportunity Stipend from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (2004) and the Individual Artist Fellowship at the Chautauqua Fund for the Arts (1992, 1994 and 1999). Frischkorn is the assistant professor of art, Millersville University, Millersville, PA.

First Floor Gallery B
Bachelor Portraits: Photographs by Justyna Badach

Employing the classical Western conventions of male portrait painting, Justyna Badach captures the subject of the bachelor in her new series of large format photographs. Badach chooses to photograph each subject amongst their most valued possessions, echoing a pictorial form found in the mid-18th century English portraiture, where the personal display and appearance were significant indicators of class status. As Badach states “the images recall paintings which celebrated men who rejected family life in favor of intellectual pursuits and elevated their cultivated eccentricities to the status of art.”

Image: Vek, 2004/2006, C-print, 44 x 54 inches; courtesy of the artist

In discussing the size of the final works Badach explains “I use the large format camera because it shares a visual affinity to painting. This approach requires that the artist be carefully attuned to the sitter and the space that they are composing . . . The sitters who chose to reveal their life to the camera also accept the vulnerability inevitably felt when opening up ones private world to a stranger . . .The portraits enable the men to openly be themselves, to use the space of the image to publicly express their identity and interests. The images become declaration of their escape from a life of social conventions and an opportunity to explore the emotional longing to pursue a self-determined life.”

Badach received a MFA in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. Solo exhibitions include: The Guides, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA (2006); Vivarium: Repeat, Resemble and Represent, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2005); and a solo exhibition at the Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia, PA (2004). Her work has been featured at Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2006); Festival Internazionale di Roma (2006); The Galleries at Moore College of Art, Philadelphia (2005); Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia (2005); Studio Thomas Kellner, Siegen Germany (2005); The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY (2004); Lee Ka Sing Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2004); Volkswagen Gallerie at the Fringe Club, Hong Kong (2004); Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA (2003); The Print Center, Philadelphia (2002); White Columns, New York (2001); and SOHO 20 Gallery, New York, NY (1998); among others. Badach has curated several exhibitions at the Cranbrook University and in Philadelphia and is currently associate professor and interim program director for photography at the University of Delaware, Newark, DE.

Third Floor Gallery Tara O’ Brien: Entelechy For Aristotle, the concept of entelechy was effectively the "end within"--the potential of living things to become themselves. In this context, artist Tara O’Brien considers books a living manifestation or testament to a person’s life.		Image: Growth, 2006. Brown leather, paper, human hair; 3 x 4-1/4 inches; Courtesy of the artist.
To emphasize their role as physical objects that exist through time, O’Brien plays with the formal structure of the book, either by attending to or thwarting its purpose. In some instance books are crocheted and bound within pages; in other instances they are given anthropomorphic qualities such as hair or skin. O’ Brien states “as living things, books are a metaphor for the structure of life. Each page representing a momentous turning point or event, where we can turn back and see all of the actions that have led us to the event.”

O’Brien received an M.F.A. in book arts/printmaking from the University of Arts, Philadelphia. She has had exhibitions at The Gallery of the Art Institute of Boston (2006); Coburn Gallery, Colorado College. Colorado Springs (2006); Brooklyn Artists Gym, Brooklyn, NY (2006); The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY (2006); and Core New Art Space, Denver, CO (2005). O’Brien has participated in the Fourth International Artist’s Book Triennial, Vilnius, Lithuania (2006); project MOBILIBRE-BOOKMOBILE, a traveling exhibition from Montreal, Canada; the international traveling exhibition Artist’s Books from Philadelphia and Timisoara, which traveled from Philadelphia to Timisoara to New York (2005); and Stand and Deliver Movable Book Show, which traveled to Connecticut, California, Florida, Colorado, and Illinois (2004). O’Brien teaches at the Moore College of Art and Design and works independently as a book binder for various institutions and individual artists.

Satellite Gallery
The Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 W. Rittenhouse Square, 3rd Floor
Of memory [and listening]: New work by Brenton Good

Borrowing techiniques and formal concerns expressed both in printmaking and painting, Brenton Good creates architectonic two-dimensional works that recall several modern periods in the history of art.

Image: Condolence 25, 2006. Monotype on panel; Courtesy of the artist.

Geometric systems recall the compositional concerns of Minimalist painting, while more accidental marks that include scratches and drips evoke the immediacy of Abstract Expresssionism. The transparency of each layer of final work reflects the contemplative responses of the artist. As Good states “the finished piece is a documentation of all the steps in the creative process, both organic and controlled. Each layer of color becomes a record of a decision made concerning composition, weight, or rhythm. As a viewer works through passages within the piece, the subtle meditative and devotional nature of each choice made by the artist becomes more apparent. The quiet beauty of a water stain becomes magnified when coupled with a straight line of a flat area of color.”

Good received an M.F.A .and M.A. from the University of Dallas, Irving, TX and has had recent solo exhibitions at the Ft. Worth Community Arts Center, Ft. Worth, TX (2005), 33up, Dallas, TX (2004), and the Zephyr Art Gallery, Pasadena, CA (2004). Other group exhibitions have been held at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2005); Zephyr Art Gallery, Pasadena, CA (2005); University of Alaska, Anchorage, AK (2005); Messiah College, Grantham, PA (2004); Bilkent University, Ankora, Turkey (2004); Grayson County College, Denison, TX (2004); Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, TX (2004); and Instituto San Ludovico, Orvieto, Italy (2000). Good has been an adjunct professor of art history at Messiah College, Grantham, PA and an adjunct instructor in figure drawing at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design.

Fall 2006 Exhibitions at the Philadelphia Art Alliance
September 21 to December 31, 2006

Public Opening for all Exhibitions: Thursday, September 21, 2006, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Image: Still from Time Release by Mark Johnson; HD DVD video; Courtesy of Concrete Pictures

Continuing our commitment to exploring the most exciting and innovative contemporary art forms, the Philadelphia Art Alliance will present a group exhibition presenting the work of 18 artists creating non-narrative motion art in all digital media.

This exhibition is a collaborative effort between the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the independent production facility MOBIUS. Selections from the vast archive at MOBIUS were made by Melissa Caldwell, director of exhibitions at the PAA and Wade Echer, supervising producer of Concrete Pictures.

MOBIUS is a cross-platform motion media arts project exhibiting the work of the world's best contemporary artists and animators. Language-independent, produced, and mastered in full 1080i high definition video, the project has been in existence since October 2003, when Philadelphia-based Concrete Pictures became the primary supplier of HD motion art programming for Rainbow Media's Voom HD satellite platform. Since its inception the ongoing project has produced over 135 hours of original motion art.

In order to obtain such a large amount of new material MOBIUS created a desktop-based production and post-production facility that houses an in-house creative staff but also reaches out to artists and supplies them with active production and post-production support to create new work. Since the project's inception they have worked with over 100 artists from all over the world to produce the largest collection of motion video art in existence. This exhibition will culling some of the most innovative pieces from this collection representing the work of artists who have used their production facilities.

Freed from the constraints of commercially driven practices in digital video, the works on view challenge the narrative presuppositions and demands of filmmaking, thus creating an alternative Filmic art, digitally based, but conceptually innovative. A variety of production techniques are employed in these selections, exemplifying the range now being employed in this genre. For example, live action footage, as seen in works by Peter Rose, Kara Crombie and Gregory King, is featured alongside two and three-dimensional animations created completely in Macromedia Flash software by such artists as Chad Fahs, Mark Johnson, and Ben Jones.

This body of work as represented in a gallery setting is unique in two ways. First, all of the works selected represent an alternative to the narrative forms in which most production and viewer relationships depends. As non-linear narrative forms--also known as non-narrative motion art--the viewer’s expectations of logical progression and storytelling are thwarted in favor of creating immersive environments and unexpected visual configurations through the element of time.

Second is the presentation of the selections without an over-determined format for viewing. For the exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, monitor stations combine several pieces and will be combined with large-scale projections featuring single works. The artists selected for this exhibition include: Nell Breyer and Jonathan Bachrach, Esther Bell, Sarah J. Christman, Pablo Colapinto, Kara Crombie, Wade Echer and Chad Fahs, Andy Hann, Colin James, Mark Johnston, Ben Jones, Valerie Keller, Justin Leavens, Peter Rose, Shirley Sarker, Bonnie Scott, Rob Shaw, and Paul Westergard.

Using the simple image of the theater curtain, John Lorenzini’s images are filled with narrative suppositions. Capturing the artifice and dramatic nature of set design, the human presence in these images are inferred by the dramatic lighting and artificial structure of the stage.

Image: John Lorenzini, Untitled from “Set Pieces”, 2006; Digital c-print; Courtesy of the artist

Almost reminiscent of an early burlesque show set, there is a suggestive sexual overtone of the images, yet the performance that is about to occur is left to the viewer’s to imagine.

This concentration on artificiality combined with the continual absence of the figure reflects Lorenzini’s interest in social interaction on a much broader level.

The artist states, “I consider a stage, or set, less an isolated singular physical space where plays and shows are performed, and photographs taken, and more a metaphorical representation of the abstract stage on which any social interaction may occur. The relationship between visual artificial environments and the more abstract artificiality that exists in social life is what interests me and motivates my work.”

Lorenzini received a B.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 and has studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Georgia Study Abroad Program in Cortona Italy. As a member of the artist collective Vox Populi, Lorenzini has had three solo exhibitions in 2003, 2004 and 2005 as well as three group exhibitions from 2002 to 2004. Selected group exhibitions include: Significant Bodies, The Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography, University of LaVerne, LaVerne, CA (2006); 80^th Annual International Competition, The Print Center, Philadelphia (2006); Absence, Flatfile Galleries-Photography, Chicago, IL (2004); Works on Paper, Arcadia University, Glenside, PA (2004); In A Silent Way, Main Line Art Center, Rosemont, PA (2003); Digital Visions, Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, CA (2002); National Juried Exhibition, Phoenix Gallery, New York, NY (2002); Contemporary Art II, Period Gallery, Omaha, NE (2002); and 3 AM, American Cultural Center Gallery, Damascus, Syria.

Image: Christine McMonagle, Uta, 2003; Inkjet print; Courtesy of the artist.

First Floor Gallery B
Narrative Symmetry: Photographs by Christine McMonagle

Originally taken as Polaroid’s, Christine McMonagle considers her series, Narrative Symmetry as a study of personal relationships told through time.

As a series of diptychs, representing two moments or instances during the photographic process, they are images that hint at a deeper narrative--one that reveals less of the instance reflected in the image but more of the rapport between artist and subject. The instantaneous nature of the Polaroid process allows McMonagle to represent this connection in a method that could be described as impulsive and unfiltered. As the artist states, “More like an open-ended narrative than a clear description, the images are a little out of focus and indefinite. As much a study of myself as the subject, they are my memories and my stories.”

McMonagle received a B.F.A from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia and has studied at the University of Applied Sciences, Bielefeld, Germany and the Campus of Temple University in Rome, Italy. Exhibitions include: Viewpoint, InLiquid at the Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia (2005); North of the Border: Art in Northern Liberties 3, Philadelphia (2004); Photoimage 03: CPI Annual Photography Competition, Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art, Philadelphia (2003); and Eleventh Annual Phillips’ Mill Photographic Exhibition, New Hope, PA (2003. McMonagle now works a Freelance Photography Assistant in Philadelphia.

Image: Jessica Demcsak, Decatur Street--New Orleans, 2006; Oil and acrylic on wood; Courtesy of the artist.

Influenced by the concepts of place, structure, and phenomenology first espoused by theorists such as Gaston Bachelard, Jessica Demcsak creates paintings of buildings and landscapes on handmade wooden boxes that add a three dimensional element to her work. Part sculpture, part painting, the surface image is a simplified silhouette of a place the artist has visited and documented with photographs.

For Demcsak, the layering of opaque and transparent layers of paint are akin to her memories of that specific place, while the small scale of the wooden objects create a sense of preciousness and nostalgia. As the artist states “Painting in such a devoted way will hopefully reflect the closeness of the viewer’s gaze. The idea that the viewer will share the same space as I did while creating the painting is fascinating. Sharing and experience through an object relates to the idea of memories contained in a space.”

Demcsak received an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of the Arts and an M.A. in Art Education from Kean University, Union, NJ. Recent exhibitions include: Endings and Beginnings, Rock Paper Scissors Gallery, Asbury Park, NJ (2006); City as Nature, Afif Gallery, Philadelphia (2006); Food for Thought, Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center, Newark, NJ (2005); Urban Life, Esther Klein Gallery, Philadelphia (2005); Local Color, Artspace 129, Montclair, NJ (2005); “Window on Broad”, Rosenwald-Wolf Galleries, Philadelphia (2005); Maple Street Gallery, New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, Summit, NJ (2005); James Howe Gallery, Kean University, Union, NJ (2005); New American Painting, Open Studio Press Exhibition in Print (2005); Happy Birthday, Nova Fine Art, Clinton, NJ (2003); WIP, Rosenwald-Wolf Galleries, Philadelphia (2003); and International Juried Competition, New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ (2002). In 2005, Demcsak was the recipient of a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Grant and a Food for Thought Fellowship from the Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center.

Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery
The Rittenhouse Hotel
210 W. Rittenhouse, Third Floor

Image: Morgan Craig, She is a Stairwell of Sundays, 2006; Oil on linen; Courtesy of the artist

Morgan Craig is moved by the now abandoned architectural surroundings of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Craig finds a sense of austerity, beauty, and remembrance to the structures and spaces created for specific purposes—paying homage to that which has been abandoned or forgotten.

Rail stations, buildings and factories from an age of manufacturing and industry are instilled with a sense of beauty and peacefulness. As Craig states “I sue perspective and color to portray these hall of melancholy as sanctuaries of light, renewal, and the forgotten.”

Craig received a M.F.A. in painting from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. He has had solo exhibitions at: University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (2006); Artworks Gallery, Cincinnati, OH (2006); Big Idea Gallery, Jim Thorpe, PA (2006); Penn State University, Altoona Campus, Altoona, PA (2005); and Redux Contemporary Art Center, Charleston, SC (2005). Recent group exhibitions include: Bettcher Gallery, Miami, FL (2005 and 2006); Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (2006); South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN (2006); Lawrence Asher Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2006); Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia (2005); Florida State University (2005); Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL (2005); Hartford Art Association, Havre de Grace, MD (2005); 1000 Walls Gallery, Chicago, IL (2005); University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2005) Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA (2005); OK Harris, New York , NY (2005) Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA (2005); Murray State University, Murray, KY (2005); Gallery Katz, Boston, MA (2005); Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts, Toronto, Ontario (2004); Arrot Art Museum, Elmira, NY (2004); Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA (2004); and L.I.P.A. Gallery, Chicago, IL (2004). Craig is also the recipient of a 2006 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship Grant.

First Floor Galleries
Hedwige Jacobs: Déjà vu
Sarah Gamble: am/fm + cell phone paintings

Third Floor Gallery
Attack of the GENTRIFIER!
Students from the Mural Arts Big Picture program for the Asian Arts Initiative

Satellite Gallery
The Rittenhouse 210 W. Rittenhouse, 3rd Floor
Doug Kinsey: Blue Cairns

OUTsideIN OUTside IN is an opportunity for emerging and established artists from the Mid-Atlantic region to undertake the challenge of creating a temporary two-dimensional work in a public gallery space.		Proposal sketch for OUTsideIN by Mauro Zamora.
Ten artists were selected to develop a proposal for the final execution of a site-specific work on the walls of the Art Alliance. The project is designed to encourage innovative and experimental public projects that bring the conceptual framework of the outdoor mural into the interior space of a gallery. Artists selected will work with the PAA and the Mural Arts Program and execute the piece during a three-week period.

Selections were made from a Call for Entries by guest juror Douglas Fogle, who is curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Until summer 2005, Fogle was curator of visual arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.		Proposal sketch for OUTsideIN by Valerie Hollister
In addition to his role as curator of the 2008 Carnegie International, Fogle is responsible for new acquisitions and the presentation of the museum's contemporary art collection. Most recently, Fogle has organized the traveling exhibition Andy Warhol/ Supernova: Stars, Deaths, Disasters, 1962–1964, which opened at the Walker in November. Fogle has written for several exhibition catalogues and journals such as Artforum, frieze, Flash Art, and Parkett and in 2004, he served as a Panelist for the 2004 Pew Fellowships in the Arts in the category of painting.

Selections were based on the strength of previous site-specific works as well as the proposal created for the Mural Arts Program and the Art Alliance. Themes range from identity, to history, to the environment and architecture and will be executed in a variety of media ranging from stencils, to silk embroidery, to watercolor, among many others. Participating artists include: Nancy Agati, David Guinn and Jim Hinz (collaborative project), Valerie Hollister, B. Ever Nalens, Matthew Pruden, Paul Santoleri, Buy Shaver, Elisheva Biernoff and Jennifer Smith (collaborative project), Xiang Yang, and Mauro Zamora.

Hedwige Jacobs: Déjà vu Hedwige Jacobs will present works on paper as well as stop-action animation for her solo exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. In most cases, the drawings become the basis for her animations, using the same compositional and thematic elements—thus making the animation a counterpoint to the still image.		Hedwige Jacobs, Open House, Ink on paper; Courtesy of the artist
As Hedwige suggests, “By animating the drawings, I make them come alive for a few seconds . . . my work is really about the second impression where a lot more is happening and not seen the first time.”

Jacobs uses a direct hand-drawn technique to address the uncanny in everyday life. The works are imbued with lively human interaction and with environments that are suggestive of an event or place, yet these are left as starting points, fragmented moments in an unending narrative. Their dislocation from a specific time or place evoke a dream-like quality, allowing the viewer to create their own associations.

Jacobs completed her BFA and post-graduate work at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, The Netherlands and received an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In addition to several exhibitions at The Hague, The Netherlands (1994-2003), Jacobs has had exhibitions at: Ice Box Project Space, Philadelphia (2006); Painted Bride Art Gallery, Philadelphia (2005); Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia (2005); Union Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD (2005); June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Portland, ME (2004); Ester M. Klein Gallery, Philadelphia (2004); Fraser Gallery, Washington D.C. (2004); Media Bureau Networks, Philadelphia (2004); Artists Space, New York, NY (2003); Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ (2003); Brad Cooper Gallery, Tampa, FL (2001); and Hyde Park Fine Arts, Tampa, FL (2000). Although Jacobs was a resident in Philadelphia, she now lives and works Houston, TX.

Sarah Gamble: am/fm + cell phone paintings Through the combination of architecture and the landscape, Sarah Gamble’s paintings allude to the ways in which we now communicate and connect to each other over distances. In each painting, an isolated setting—an igloo, a trailer, a forest—are depicted in seclusion from another.		Sarah Gamble, Untitled encapsulation (detail), Oil on panel; Courtesy of the artist.
Through these symbolic places, Gamble references how communities, however remote, share experiences through what the artist terms as the “transference” of radiant energy. As Gamble further states, “Radio waves . . . travel through walls and bodies, and pass over all types of landscapes on their voyage. They allow people to connect unknowingly through this invisible journey between receptors, creating an inter-dimension of shared experience.”

Gamble received a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, D.C. and a MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania. She has had recent solo exhibitions at Lump Gallery and projects, Raleigh, NC (2006); Concordia University, Seward, NE; Pageant Gallery, Philadelphia (2006); Bambi Gallery, Philadelphia (2006); and Fleisher Challenge, Fleischer Art Memorial. Philadelphia (2005). Group exhibitions include: Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2006); Lump Gallery, Raleigh, NC (2006); Pageant Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2005); Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA (2005); Ice Box Project Space, Philadelphia (2005); and Fleischer-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2003), among many others. Gamble was a resident artist at Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT in 2001 and has just completed a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE.

Attack of the GENTRIFIER! Students from the Mural Arts Big Picture program for the Asian Arts Initiative Instructor: Rodney Camarce Assistant Instructors in training: Rocky Kev, Linda Sareoun, Suny Uy		Sketch for Attack of the GENTRIFIER! Site-specific mural painting, 2006
Students: Annie Seng, Barney Seng, Faustine Maystre, Trang Nyguen, Micheal Lu, Gilana Tahir, Samoen Sok

In conjunction with the Second Floor Exhibition OUTsideIN, a painted mural and individual works on canvas by students of the Big Picture program will be on display in the third floor galleries. Through out the winter session of the Big Picture program, the Asian Arts Initiative asked the students to create a design based on gentrification and relocation. The students began their investigation by creating definitions of these ideas based on personal stories and interviews that relate to the expansion of the Convention Center and the relocation of the Asian Arts Initiative. Through these activities, they were able to create an illustration that symbolized the issues the students encountered during their research. In the mural, a giant monster with tentacles represents the complex issues that are intertwined within the fight for affordable housing--such as institutional racism, banking, and loans—as well as its problems with red-lining, corporate accountability, and community development.

Big Picture is a yearlong, mural-training and art education program within the Mural Arts Program serving over 350 students annually. This program is primarily for students 10-14 years of age with limited availability for students 14-18 years of age. During these sessions, the students work on various mural projects, including large-scale mural projects with professional muralists. Throughout the year, students follow a curriculum exposing them to both the technical process of mural making, as well as community organizing. Lessons are designed to help youth participants become creative thinkers and to better prepare them for the workforce through skills in problem solving, critical thinking and teamwork. Students investigate their communities while developing interviewing and presentation skills.

The Rittenhouse 210 W. Rittenhouse, 3rd Floor Doug Kinsey: Blue Cairns Douglas Kinsey’s paintings “The Interval Series” have many metaphorical layers of meaning relating to spirituality, geography, and inner-peace. Using handmade paints, wax and alkyd, Kinsey has reduced his palette to blue and white for all of his work.		Douglas Kinsey, Interval Series, Palingenesia #14, oil, alkyd and wax on canvas; Courtesy of the artist.
The use of blue as symbol of water (no black pigment is used), in combination with an interest in changes in the surrounding light produce what Kinsey describes as “a contemplative sense of abiding peace and stillness.” The basis of these works are also inspired by what are known as “intervals”, which are the meadows that are carved out by a local streams found in his former home in Nova Scotia, Canada. These influences produce a final abstract work that is what Kinsey has termed” a spiritual geography”.

Kinsey received a BFA from Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, CA and a Master’s Degree in Divinity from Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Pittsburgh, PA. In addition to several solo exhibitions in Nova Scotia, Canada, Kinsey has had solo exhibitions at The Athenaeum, La Jolla, CA; Bard Hall, San Diego, CA; and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include: Berlin Sommerwende@ Gallery 24, Berlin Germany (2005); Hee NA Wa Ri Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2005); Marziart Internationale, Hamburg, Germany, (2005); The Westmoreland Museum of American Art Biennial, Greensburg, PA (2004); The Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA (2004); The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA (2004); The University Gallery, The University of Pittsburgh (2004); Roy G. Biv Gallery, Columbus, OH (2003 and 2005); The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA (2003 and 2004); The Three Rivers Arts Festival (2003 and 2004); The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA (2003); The Art Institute of Pittsburgh (2002); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA (2001); and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (2000 and 2001). Kinsey is also a member of the international painters group Pintura Fresca, which is based in France.

Stephen Talasnik:
Fictional Engineering: Drawings and Sculpture
Scorched Earth:
Recent Work by John Atkin
November 29 to January 13, 2002

Poetics of Clay:
An International Perspective
September 14 to November 11, 2001

Digital Deluxe:
A sampling of digital art practices by east coast artists.
June 7 to September 2, 2001.

Performance/Process/Repetition:
Works by Sandra Camomile, Gabrielle Kanter, and Margo Schriber
May 13 to June 25, 2000

A Delicate Constitution: Reconsidering the Decorative Aesthetic

Linda Cordell, Carson Fox, Colleen Toledano, and Eva Wylie

On exhibit from February 9 through May 21, the Philadelphia Art Alliance will present A Delicate Constitution: Reconsidering the Decorative Aesthetic in their Second Floor Galleries. The exhibition will present works that range from flower wreaths, to porcelain sculpture, to screenprints—all questioning the idea of the decorative object and its place in contemporary art. This exhibition includes the work of four women artists from the region: Linda Cordell, Carson Fox, Colleen Toledano, and Eva Wylie.

The objects presented in the exhibition A Delicate Constitution could generally be described with such terms as intricate, opulent, decorative, and sentimental. The four participating artists are loosely drawn to the formal aspects of Baroque and Rococo furnishings and interior decor, 19th century Romanticism, Victorian decorative arts, and Art Nouveau aesthetics, among many others. Whether it is the material used, the technique by which the work is assembled, or the themes addressed, each object presented in the exhibition represents a larger recent trend towards the highly decorative and handmade. This exhibition is not meant to be a comprehensive survey of this trend, but rather a focus on the practice of four artists from this region who seem drawn to this movement either in technique or subject matter, or both.

A Delicate Constitution: Reconsidering the Decorative Aesthetic

Linda Cordell, pink blush, Porcelain, 2004

Eva Wylie, Crowned, Screenprint on wall, 2005

Colleen Tolendano, Smother Blush, Porcelain, pewter, rubber, leather, synthetic hair, glitter, 2004.

Carson Fox, Lush, Dyed silk flowers, 2005

About the Artists

Linda Cordell
Linda Cordell finds inspiration for her animal and insect porcelain sculptures in the history of animal sculpture in European art. The pieces reflect the lifelike realism and the classical style of such movements as the 19th Century French School of sculpture, Les Animaliers, and Victorian Staffordshire porcelain. The intricate and highly decorative sensibility of Victorian and French motifs are referenced in the realistic depiction of animals such as dogs, squirrels, and weasels, yet their anthropomorphic behavior suggests an alternative interpretation: one involving human sexuality, violence, and death. What was once considered a fashionable collector’s item at the turn of the century has become a vehicle for Cordell to explore human behavior as well as our questionable relationship with the animal kingdom.

Cordell received her BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY, and her MFA from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia and at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI. Her work has been exhibited in the Cheongju International Craft Biennale at the National Cheongju Museum, Korea; the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA; The John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; The Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia; the Nancy Margolies Gallery, New York, NY; Main Gallery at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI; The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD; and the Clay Studio, Philadelphia; among others. Cordell is a 1998 recipient of an Evelyn Shapiro Foundation Fellowship and a 2003 Pew Fellowship in the Arts in the category of crafts.

Carson Fox
Carson Fox has been developing two bodies of work simultaneously for several years: one involving floral pieces formed into wreaths and kissing balls; and one involving the use of thin wire fashioned into delicate screens of patterned lace or text. Both bodies of work stem from and interest in memorial or funerary motifs--both in their enticing beauty as well as their symbolic history in American Southern culture.

Fox’s floral wreaths also reflect a sense of dread and uncertainty despite their lush and elegant appearance. These works incorporate glitter with silk flowers, butterflies, and birds, yet the flowers are used to create a text message that is often contradictory to the elegant composition of the display. For example, a lovely mint green heart shaped wreath reads “LIAR” while a light blue diamond shaped work is inscribed with the word “FRAUD”. Fox states, “I seek a dual role: to allow for fleeting escape into a fantasy world of sparkling surfaces, before drawing you back to confront contradictory materials, text, or uncomfortable placement.”

Fox’s wire sculptures are inspired by memorial hair jewelry of the Victorian era. Finely wrought from thin strands of wire, Fox weaves the pieces into text or into a filigree pattern that not only reference the universal motif of the memento or commemorative object, but her personal sense of loss and remorse after the sudden death of her parents in 2001.

Fox received a BFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a MFA from Rutgers University, NJ. She has had numerous solo exhibitions and has participated in many national and international group exhibitions, for example: the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, Wales; the Brunswiker Pavilion in Kiel, Germany; the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, NJ; and the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia. Her recent solo exhibitions include : Louche, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO; Reliquary, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY; the Fleisher Art Memorial Challenge Exhibition, Philadelphia; and Broken, O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York, NY; among many others. She is the recipient of a Mid-Atlantic Foundation Grant, New Jersey Council on the Arts Fellowship/Grant in Sculpture, and an Emil Cresson Award. Her work is included in many public and private collections, including the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, the Royal Museum of Belgium, Hofstra Museum, Hempstead, the Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Philadelphia. Fox is represented by Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY.

Colleen Toledano
Colleen Toledano is powerfully influenced by outward signs of traditional femininity. Whether it is a perfume bottle or a compact of blush, a hair comb or a garter belt, Tolendano indulges in the superficial beauty of these objects, seducing the viewer through the polished and intricate surfaces created through the use of porcelain, pewter, or sterling silver. Upon closer inspection, however, most of these objects have secondary, functional purpose as an object for defense. Decorative objects more familiar to women turn into powerful weapons: a perfume bottle transforms into a grenade, a metal comb becomes a brass knuckle, or a blusher can be used as a harpoon. As Toledano states, “The neediness for the pieces to be part of the viewers’ lives is derived from the outward beauty and delicacy of the pieces and the viewers’ sudden realization of what the object is meant for and how it can be utilized.”

Toledano studied at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and received her MFA from Ohio University School of Art in 2004. She was the 2005 Philip C. Curtis Artist In Residence in Ceramics at Albion College, Albion, MI. Most recently her work has been exhibited in Winter Solstice IV, both at the Westchester Arts Council, White Plains, NY and The Studio: An Alternative Space for Contemporary Art in Armonk, NY. She has also exhibited at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia; Afif Gallery, Philadelphia; and the Millard Grand Project, St. Pancras Chambers, London. Toledano lives and works in Erie, PA.

Eva Wylie
Whether the work is printed directly on the wall or is an intricate web of paper and fabric weaved into a sculptural object, artist Eva Wylie uses the screenprint as the primary material for her pieces. Deriving her imagery from the internet as well as other graphic sources such as magazines or product designs, Wylie displaces the content of these images from their origin and creates new forms that play with the concepts of ornament, structure, and spatial illusion. The meaning of the original image is stripped of its significance and given over to a structure that becomes primarily ornamental. In some, flat screenprints are molded into elegant amorphous patterns resembling a patchwork quilt, while other works screenprinted directly onto the wall are rendered as a three-dimensional object. Each are intricately woven or printed, referencing more traditional concepts of ornamentation or the decorative object in American culture.

Wylie received a BA from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA and a MFA in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, PA. She has recently exhibited at Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia; Artists Image Resource, Pittsburgh, PA; Allegheny College Art Gallery, Meadville, PA; Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA; W. Made Gallery, Chicago, IL; Icebox at the Crane Art Center, Philadelphia; Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD; and Cabrini College, Radner, PA; among many others. Wylie is a member of the artists’ cooperative Vox Populi in Philadelphia.

April 8 to May 21, 2006
First and Third Floor Galleries:
"ARTQUILTS AT THE SEDGWICK: ON THE SQUARE”
OPENS APRIL 8
PUBLIC RECEPTION: APRIL 7, 5:30 TO 8:30

Virginia Abrams, The Shallows, 2005; Silk and cotton; Courtesy of the artist.

Jeanne Williamson, Orange Construction, Fence Series, 2005; Fiber. Courtesy of the artist.

The show represents the 7th (now biennial) juried exhibition presented by critically acclaimed ArtQuilts at the Sedgwick [AQatS]. Works by 44 artists from the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia will be on view in the first and third floor galleries through May 21. AQatS is proud to continue the tradition it began four years ago to highlight not only its own exhibition of fine art quilts but also to promote the many other regional venues that now feature the fiber arts as part of "April is Fiber in Philly."

When it began in 1999 as a 10-day invitational show at the Sedgwick Cultural Center in Mt. Airy, AQatS recognized that it had the heady task of explaining the very words "art quilt" and showing quilts on the wall to many visitors who knew only the functional bed quilt. To the organizers’ surprise, the success of this brief exhibition surpassed all expectations. In fact, AQatS attracted so much attention from both the public and the press that it expanded annually and became a month-long, juried exhibition in its third year. Fulfilling its mission to provide a consistent venue for the exhibition of the art quilt and the education of the public about this important and ever-evolving art form, each year the AQatS committee has also produced a CD-ROM catalogue of each featured quilt as well as comments by each artist and each juror.

It is a testament to the widespread fame of AQatS that is receives hundreds of submissions from artists from every region of the country and from abroad as well. For AQATS 2006, 44 quilts were selected by three illustrious jurors—Rebecca Stevens, author and curator of Contemporary Textiles at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and fiber artist/teachers Lewis Knauss of Moore College of Art and Design and Amy Orr of Rosemont College. They have assembled a show that illustrates the depth and varieties of the contemporary art quilt: photo transfers, paper and whole cloth quilts, embroidery and painting on cloth, are but a few of the techniques that the visitor will see in 2006. Artists selected: Virginia Abrams, Bob Adams, Valerie Aita, Lisa Call, Violet Cavazos, Jette Clover, Tricia Coulson, Bonnie Epstein Denise M. Furnish & C.J. Pressma , Leesa Zarinelli Gawlick, Valerie S. Goodwin, Beverly Hertler, Kristin Hoelscher-Schacker, Natasha Kempers-Cullen, Pat Kroth, Judy Langille, Eileen Lauterborn, Suzanne MacGuineas, Barbara McKie, Patricia Mink, Angela Moll, Dominie Nash, Anne McKenzie Nickolson, Constance Norton, Jacquelyn Nouveau, Julia E. Pfaff, Sue Pierce, Judith Plotner, Sarah Louise Ricketts, Pam RuBert, Noel M. Ruessmann, Diane Savona, Joan Schulze, Patti Shaw, Brenda Smith, Daphne Taylor, Deborah Tilley, Bette Uscott-Woolsey, Kathy Weaver, Barbara Webster, Kathyanne White, Jeanne Williamson.

AQatS is planned and administered by an independent committee of multi-talented quilt artists with the support of other fiber artists and art aficionados who share their commitment to promoting the art quilt. Because of the ever-expanding scope of the exhibition, the committee determined in 2004 that they could plan and promote AQatS more effectively by moving from an annual to a biennial format.

AQatS: On the Square offers guided tours of the exhibit on Thursdays and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. A self-guided audio tour is also available for the duration of the exhibit. Visitors will be able to download the free AQatS: On the Square podcast and listen on their own mp3 players or cell phones. Guided tours will be offered on Thursdays and Sundays at 2 P.M. Free self-guided podcast tour available at all hours for the duration of the show. For further information about the exhibition, the CD catalog, and other participants in "April is Fiber in Philly", visit http://aqats.blogspot.com.

Antonio Puri: Outside the Mandala
December 16, 2005 to January 29, 2006
First Floor Galleries

When viewing the work of Antonio Puri, his large scale canvases, can only be described as a fully encompassing experience of color, texture, and form. Puri’s paintings depict a delicate balance of sharp and concise circular forms, combined with a more improvisational and spontaneous application of paint and wax.

Image: Antonio Puri, Outside the Mandala, 119" X 125", modified batik on canvas, 2005; courtesy of the artist.

His paintings are an unprecedented hybrid. He has taken the ancient Eastern technique of batik and applied it to mixed media and oil paints on canvas, creating a new form, the batik canvas. By using this modified process, Puri is able to capture the very essence of his gestures as he attacks the canvas. Through this process, layers once covered, are exposed after the wax is removed, thus revealing the evolution of the work over time. However at times, Puri uses strings as a resist, instead of wax.

Ultimately, Puri’s art form engages the viewer in an active level of deciphering and imagining the works in various stages of completion. As Puri writes in his artist statement, “by contrasting highly textured surfaces with flat surfaces, vertical and horizontal drips, circles of different proportions… a tension develops. This tension is the force that keeps the paintings alive.” Many of the paintings on view in Outside the Mandala were created while Puri was a part of the chashama artist-in-residence subsidized space grant in New York.

Puri was born in Chandigarh, India, and spent the first 17 years of his life in international boarding schools in the Himalayas. He came to the United States to attend Coe College in Iowa, where he majored in art. Puri also studied at the San Francisco Academy of Art and attended the University of Iowa School of Law where he earned his JD. Puri has had several solo exhibitions including Weiss Pollack Gallery, New York; chashama, New York; Holland Art House, West Chester, PA; Gloucester County College, NJ; Cumberland County College, NJ; and Planet Art Museum, South Africa. He has also exhibited in numerous group exhibitions including the Susquehanna Art Museum, PA; Bergen Museum of Art and Science, NJ; The Noyes Museum of Art, NJ; Sharadin Art Gallery at Kutztown University, PA; Rowan University, NJ; and Som Arts Cultural Center, San Francisco, among many others. His work is also represented in museum and corporate collections and he is currently planning for two large-scale exhibitions in 2006 at West Chester University, West Chester, PA and the Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, NJ.

February 9 to May 21: Du Hoang

Philadelphia Art Alliance Satellite Gallery
The Rittenhouse Hotel
210 W. Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor

New Paintings by Du Hoang

Du Hoang, Interpreting Shiva, Oil and gesso on canvas, 1997-98.

Although there are many institutions that provide exhibition opportunities throughout the city, the Philadelphia Art Alliance is unique in its dedication to promoting the work of artists from this region through our continuing SOLOS program. We are proud to feature promising emerging and mid-career artists who may not have had an opportunity to show their work in a major institution.

Densely painted and often monochromatic, the work of artist Du Hoang addresses the many ways in which various cultures conceptualize and record time. Sand-like dots are registered in abstracted patterns on the surface of the canvas, recording the duration that the artist may have spent creating completing each work. His series of paintings are not merely a means to document the artist’s personal experience of time, but an attempt to reflect a large and more universal means by which various cultures organize daily experience. As the artist states “ Traditionally, our ancestors had various form of documenting communal/personal experiences: dance, oral/song, painting, and writing. In my work, I choose to document my personal (and communal) experiences on the canvas… as a process of registering time. “

Du Hoang received a BA in Studio Art from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, PA, and a MFA from Ohio State University, Athens, OH. Recent solo exhibitions include: Algorithm of Strings, Can Tho, Vietnam; Generative Grammar of Constructed Self, Dungeon Gallery, Ohio State University, Athens, OH; Rhapsody in Red, Trisolini Gallery, Athens, OH; Interpreting Shiva, Dungeon Gallery, Ohio State University, Athens, OH; and Misinterpreting Chuang Tzu, Temple University Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. Du Hoang is a member of the Da Vinci Art Alliance and will have a solo exhibition, Kaliyuga Series, at the Da Vinci Art Alliance later in 2006.

February 9 to April 1, 2006: Libby Saylor, Kelley Roberts, Julianna Foster

First Floor Gallery A
Libby Saylor: Familiar Places

Libby Saylor, Philadelphia, PA #1, Digital print from color negative, 2003

For the subject matter of her photographs, Libby Saylor reapproaches locations that she has become accustomed to viewing in a certain, and perhaps more comfortable, ways. Saylor’s old school parking lot, her boyfriend’s home in New Jersey, a vacation house at the beach, and even herown apartment are all the focus of her of photographs, yet resulting images are often less than recognizable.

Each abstracted image is a result of Saylor’s unique photographic technique in which the lens is disengaged from the body of the camera and turned backwards. Saylor adjusts the color and light with the lens to create the atmospheric affects that are evidenced in the final print. This process of detaching the lens is also symbolic for the artist. As Saylor states “…shooting backwards proves to work to my advantage. Not only am I able to gently detach emotionally, but I also come to view my subject matter in a way never obvious to me before. The plain familiar places hold fascinating enchantment that can only be unlocked by breaking a few rules, taking some chances, and having fun in the process.”

Saylor received a BA in photography from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia and recently had her first solo exhibition through the InLiquid Exhibition Series in Philadelphia. Other recent exhibitions include: FreeForm, Media Bureau Networks, Philadelphia; Abstractions, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA; Urban Cartography, DaVinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia; POV: Bring the World Into Focus, Artoconecto, Washington, D.C.; Portrait of My Mother. . .Things left Unsaid, Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, CA; and Faces of Woman, Las Vegas Arts Council, Las Vegas, NM. The was the recipient of the Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity Grant in 2003 and her work has been published in F-Stop Magazine and the Washington Post.

February 9 to April 1, 2006: Libby Saylor, Kelley Roberts, Julianna Foster

First Floor Gallery B
Kelley Roberts: Sometime Sunshine

Kelley Roberts, Ode to Him, Digital image, 2005

The new body of work by Kelley Roberts addresses themes only suggested through basic iconic elements. Outer space, owls set in the snowy woods, or fireworks in a landscape are predominately created from digital images or scanned photographs that are digitally altered and composed, printed, hand cut, and layered in frames. The ways in which they are cut and layered allow the actual content of the image to exist only in silhouette.

The silhouette itself is suggestive of a shadowy or unclear

memory. Thus, Roberts considers these images to be somewhat akin to an oral history—that is, an effort to collect an oral account in a visual form. Like the form of an oral history, the narrative only exists each time it is spoken. Therefore, what is suggested—whether it is a subject set in nature or something more supernatural--does not exist in a particular time or place. Ultimately, Robert’s images speak to how an narrative may be changed through its retelling much in the way in which each viewer brings his or her own unique set of experiences to the interpretation of any visual form.

Roberts received a BFA at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Bloomfield Hills, MI. Recent solo exhibitions include: View, Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA; Crossed, Terminal E, The Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia as well as five solo exhibitions at Vox Populi, Philadelphia. Some of Roberts many group exhibitions have included: In Our Own Backyard, on view at Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA and The Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA; In a Silent Way, as on view at The Main Line Art Center, and Against the Tide, a group exhibition hosted by Peter and Mari Shaw, Philadelphia. Roberts is a recipient of an Independent Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a Fellowship from the Independence Foundation (both in 2003).

February 9 to April 1, 2006: Libby Saylor, Kelley Roberts, Julianna Foster

Third Floor Gallery
Julianna Foster: on my way back to you

Julianna Foster, A Brief History of Time, Inkjet print on photo rag paper, mounted on sintra, 2005

Tracing the distinctions and similarities between text and image, every series of work by Julianna Foster involves a visual manifestation of the concepts of narrative and form. The narrative--built from a series of photographic images, handmade books, and videos--all relate to a larger master narrative. Each work, therefore, references the very structure of how meaning is generated through the relationship of word to representation and vice versa. Often the subjects of her series relate to the physical nature and content of a specific text as well as the original context from which it was written. Hidden meanings are revealed through the manipulation of the text, whether the text is obscured, referenced visually, or literally removed from page.

Foster received a BFA from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC, and will receive an MFA in Book Arts from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, in 2006. She taught photography and digital imaging at several universities including the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, and The Katherine Gibbs School, Philadelphia. Foster has had solo exhibitions through InLiquid at the Bride, the Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, PA; at the Exhibition Media Center, North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston-Salem, NC; Whistling Women, Winston-Salem, NC; and the SEED Collective, Winston-Salem, NC. Group exhibitions have included: Artists' Books from Philadelphia and Timisoara, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA and Library Humanitas Joc Secund, Timisoara, Romania; Turning Pages, Whittier College, Whittier, CA; Viewpoint, InLiquid at the Bride, the Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia; Passage, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Women in the Middle, Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, Milwaukee, WI; and Cleveland State University Second Biennial Photography and Digital Media, Cleveland, OH. Foster has been an Artist-In-Residence at The Silver Factory, Cleveland, OH and is currently a Graduate Fellow at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

Rittenhouse Square Collects
Part Two: On the Square
September 17 to December 2, 2005

Organized by James Jensen, Associate Director and Chief Curator of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu. Project Director: Helen W. Drutt English

View of Rittenhouse Square ca. 1930. Photo source unknown

Satellite Gallery Rittenhouse Hotel 210 W. Rittenhouse Square. Third Floor September 17, 2005 to January 8, 2006 Jung Wha Ahn: The Search for Inner Peace The paintings of Jung Wha Ahn have a sincere formalistic quality often overlooked in contemporary painting. Composition, color relationships and form are carefully balanced to create a natural rhythmic blend that seems to hover on the surface on the canvas. Yet, this formal concern for the qualities of painting itself actually reflects a deeper more poetic relationship between the artist and her surroundings.		Jung Wha Ahn, Letting Go (detail), Oil on canvas, 54 x 90 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Ahn draws her inspiration from small objects found in nature and in the studio which surrounds her work. Ahn states “I try to listen to Nature’s communication; a tree communicating to its fellow tree next to it, a city building to one next to it .. . I keep searching to find my personal internalized alphabets." At the Philadelphia Art Alliance Satellite Gallery, Ahn will be exhibiting several large-scale oil on canvas works as well as several smaller oil on board paintings.

Ahn received her BFA at the University of Minnesota and her MFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Recent exhibitions include: Chicago 2000, Chicago, IL (2000); Six Degrees in Cold Storage, College Art Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia (2002); From the Studio” Selections from the Philadelphia Open Studio Tour, Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Philadelphia (2004); Spirit and Transformation, Caladan Gallery, MA (2004); Artist-In-Residence Exhibition, Agora Gallery, New York, NY (2005); and Art Now 2005 International Competition (2005). In addition, Ahn has worked for many years as an art teacher and teaching assistant at both the university and elementary school levels.

Organized by James Jensen, Associate Director and Chief Curator of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu.
Project Director: Helen W. Drutt English

To commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, a series of dynamic exhibitions and programs are being held throughout 2005. This initiative, entitled Celebrating Rittenhouse Square, includes three major exhibitions to celebrate one of Philadelphia’s oldest cultural institutions. Helen W. Drutt English Philadelphia conceived the exhibition schedule for the 90th Anniversary Year and serves as the Project Director for these exhibitions.

The first exhibition “In Ever Greater Measure” was organized by Melissa Caldwell, Exhibition and Design Associate of the Philadelphia Art Alliance. The exhibition encompassed historical artifacts, documents, photographs, and other ephemera that concentrate on the history of Rittenhouse Square and the legacy of the PAA within that community.

The next two separate exhibitions, entitled Rittenhouse Square Collects, are planned for the remainder of our Anniversary celebration. It has often been stated that a major exhibition series could be drawn from the private collections housed in the dwellings around the Square. Many of these are collections that have never been accessible to the general public until now.

The Philadelphia Art Alliance has worked closely with James Jensen, Associate Director and Chief Curator of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu who selected works from private collections around the Square. The summer exhibition is an eclectic choice of works spanning the 18th century to the present and ranges from Indian textiles and drawings to early American decorative arts, to Art Deco French ceramics, to Philadelphia modernist paintings to late 20th century contemporary ceramics and jewelry. Works by Peter Voulkos, William Daley, Kato Yasukage, Manfred Bischoff, Kiff Slemmons, Peter Chang, and Bruno Martinazzi will be on view along with works by contemporary European, American, and Latin American prints, drawings, and video works. Among them are Robert Mangold, Rivane Neuenschwander, Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg, Kiki Smith, Quentin Morris, and Christian Marclay. Of particular note in the exhibition are Sol Lewitt’s Drawing #84, 10,000 lines 10 inches long, and French artist Melik Ohanian’s nine-channel video installation, The Hand (2003). Robert Arneson’s 1976 self-portrait, The Graduate, will be publicly exhibited for the first time since 1979.

This public access to private collections should draw the cultural community to the Rittenhouse Square area. More significantly, these collections emphasize the range of collecting interests as well as the philanthropic spirit of the Rittenhouse community in their support of the central position of the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Third Floor Gallery Douglas Takeshi Wolfe: Thirty One Eschewing many of the subjects and styles that dominate most of contemporary photography, the work of Douglas Takeshi Wolfe focuses upon the more formalist concerns surrounding aesthetic beauty and composition through the contemplation of the natural environment.		Douglas Takeshi Wolfe, Podere Collelungo Five, 2005, Pigment print, 20 x 24 inches, Courtesy of Gallery 339
These refreshingly studied views of the landscape present the nature as both found subject as well as constructed viewpoint.

Wolfe states, “My work is inspired by simplicity. Its beauty is created through a restraint in design and construction. The integrity of these pieces comes from a sincere observation of the landscape as I strive to combat the hyper idealistic sense of beauty that permeates much of photography and contemporary art. I focus on imagery that deals with the tension created in the relationship between beauty and ephemera.

Wolfe received a Bachelor of Science in Photography at Drexel University, Philadelphia and currently teaches at Drexel University and at the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial. Recent exhibitions include Gallery 339, Gallery 339, Philadelphia (2005); Dear Fleisher 4x5, Fleisher, Philadelphia (2004); Fleisher Faculty Exhibition, Samuel S. Fleisher Memorial, Philadelphia (2004); Philadelphia International Airport, Creative Artists Network Group Exhibition, Philadelphia (2003); Focus 2002: Photography Group Exhibit, Creative Artists Network, Philadelphia (2002); Greater Philadelphia: The Galleries At Moore, Philadelphia (2002); Annual Members Juried Exhibition: Delaware Center For The Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, Delaware (2002); Six At Can: Photography Group Exhibit, Creative Artists Network, Philadelphia (2001); Art Of The State: Pennsylvania 2001, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg PA (2001). In 2004 Wolfe receive the T.S. Carmichael Grant for Book Arts. He is currently represented by Gallery 339, Philadelphia.

Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery The Rittenhouse Hotel 210 W. Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor Suchitra Mattai: Homeward Unbound In her first solo exhibition in Philadelphia, Suchitra Mattai presents a new series of paintings in the Philadelphia Art Alliance Satellite gallery.		Suchitra Mattai, Home II, 2004, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches, courtesy of the artist.
Deriving her imagery and palette from a variety of sources such as Indian textiles, contemporary pop imagery, Persian miniatures, and Japanese prints, these works reflect her cross-cultural experiences taken from her travels around the globe.

Upon an initial glance, the architecture of these paintings appears almost logical, drawing from traditional methods of perspective and symmetry to create a balance of form and composition. Upon closer inspection, however, multiple perspectives appear within a single composition, while layers of vivid color and ornamental detail create what the artists describes as “a sense of disorientation…and a loss of self that accompanies the experience of the sublime.” It is this contest—between logic and mysticism—that sets into play a series of diametric oppositions both in form and in meaning in the final work.

Mattai received an M.F.A. in Painting in 2003 and a M.A. in South Asian Art History in 2001 from the University of Pennsylvania. She has also studied at the Royal College of Art, London, Pratt Institute, New York, and has recently worked as an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at the College of St. Benedict/St.John’s University, St. Joseph, MN. Mattai’s most recent exhibitions include: A View from the 21st Floor, Le Meridian Art Series, Minneapolis, MN (2004); MFA Thesis Show, Gallery Siano, Philadelphia (2003) and at Addam Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2003); New Works: Suchitra Mattai and Hilary Takiff, Graduate Student Center Gallery, University of Pennsylvania (2003); and Maya The Unveiling, a solo exhibition at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA (1999). In addition, Mattai has had several group exhibitions at Fox Gallery and Meyerson Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

"In Ever Greater Measure": 90 Years at the Art Alliance

The Philadelphia Art Alliance is celebrating its 90th Anniversary in 2005. A series of exhibitions and events, entitled Celebrating Rittenhouse Square, will highlight the PAA as a focal point of Philadelphia cultural history. This initiative will look inward, towards what is special and unique about the PAA, and outward, towards the relationship of the PAA with its neighbors on Rittenhouse Square. This initiative will also include a series of innovative performing, musical and literary arts programs that relate to the history of the PAA as a multidisciplinary institution.

To represent the Art Alliance, Miss Elfrieda Klauder appeared in
this costume at the Charlotte Cushman Club benefit². Art Alliance Bulletin,
January 1924.

The title of the first exhibition "In Ever Greater Measure", is appropriated from an annual report celebrating 50 years at the PAA by president Laurence Eldredge: "So, as we pass into our second half century , I envision our beloved Art Alliance, enriched with new leaders and with legacies and other gifts, continuing in ever greater measure to extend cultural horizons and bring new beauty to those who will open their eyes to receive it." With this cultural mandate in mind, "In Ever Greater Measure" encompasses historical artifacts, documents, photographs, and other ephemera that concentrate on the history of Rittenhouse Square and the legacy of the PAA within that community. By examining significant events from the history of Rittenhouse Square, the exhibition provides an understanding how the area has transformed from a residential area to that of a significant cultural center in Philadelphia. This contextual approach provides a fresh perspective by viewing the Square and the PAA through the lens of the community and their social and cultural interests.

Through a chronological structure, this exhibition will lead viewers through relevant and notable moments as well as larger social and cultural changes as it relates to the history of PAA. By providing this historical overview, the viewer will not just understand the need for the institution, but also learn how the Alliance has responded and adapted to its community over time. Within the exhibition, archival materials will be juxtaposed to noteworthy works of art of historical relevance.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS at the PAA
Inspired by the themes explored by the exhibition "In Ever Greater Measure", the Philadelphia Art Alliance has organized a series of solo exhibitions on the first and third floor. Photographic projects by Philadelphia-based artists Ditta Baron Hoeber, Stefan Abrams and Lucy O'Connell each approach similar concepts of collective verses personal memory, history, and reinterpretation through disparate methods.

Ditta Baron Hoeber: Art Stories Art Stories is a series of photographs documenting the evolution of an installation of found objects and images. For over twenty years, Hoeber has been selecting items such as magazine and newspaper clippings, postcards, handwritten notes, discarded family photos as well as small souvenirs.		Ditta Baron Hoeber, Untitled (opera), from the series Art Stories gelatin silver print, 2000/2001
Generating a personal meaning--either aesthetically or thematically--to the artist through their selection, Hoeber then carefully places them in a small space in her home, treating them as part of a larger installation. Their juxtaposition in this small space provides Hoeber with the opportunity to create an alternative space through the lens of the camera.

Hoeber explains, "Taking photographs in this space is like reading the story of my choices. It's a complicated story layered, full of mirror tricks, the two-dimensional and three-dimensional changing places. To create that story I have had to create a kind of space in my photographs that doesn't exist in the physical world. It is a space that exists in the imagination."

Hoeber studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Moore College of Art and Design. Hoeber has had solo exhibitions at University of Houston Clear Lake, Houston, TX (2003) University of the Arts, 1401 Gallery, Philadelphia (2003); Abington Arts Center, Jenkintown, PA (2002); and the Print Center, Philadelphia (1993). Hoeber has also exhibited at Slought Foundation, Philadelphia (2004); Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA (200); Third National Photography Biennial, Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan, CT (2001); Arcadia University, Glenside, PA (2001); E3 Gallery, New York, NY;(2001) Pietra di Luna Gallery, Hollywood, FL (2001); Photography 20, Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ (2001); Levy Gallery for the Arts, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia (1998); and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1997), among many others. Hoeber has been featured on the Drexel Online Journal for her photography and poetry in 2002 and 2004, and was a featured presenter at the Society for Photographic Education Mid-Atlantic Conference, Baltimore, MD (2001).

Stefan Abrams: Confrontation All of Stefan Abram's work evolves out of the conceptual implications of the photographic medium itself. Abrams is captivated by the ability of the medium to provide a window into history, whether personal or universal.		Stefan Abrams, Party, from the series Confrontation, Pigment print, 2004
In his series Confrontation, Abrams more specifically touches upon issues surrounding the figure, personal history, and the gaze of the sitter. Finding photographs at flea markets, thrift stores, and in discarded family albums, Abrams deliberately selects images that directly confront the camera. By selecting images of anonymous figures, the original impetus behind the photograph becomes lost through the reappropriation of the photo by the artist. Abrams exaggerates the tension between the "found" nature of the now anonymous subject--and its original purpose as a personal memory--by shifting the size of the photo from a hand-held momento to a large scale image. The direct gaze of a friend or family member holding the camera then translates into a direct confrontation with the viewer, now exaggerated by the increased size of the figure.

Abrams states "Looking into the lives of these anonymous people, the subtle voyeuristic thrill of looking and evaluating them in safety becomes undone. This intensity of the stare of the subject has the effect of altering the photograph from being a window into a world at which we passively look, to being an object that has great affect upon us as viewers. These carefully edited, though all together typical photographs, hint at a certain aggressiveness inherent in the medium."

Abrams received a certificate in painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and a BA in History from the University of Vermont. He has had solo exhibitions at Minima, Philadelphia (2003) Minus Space, Brooklyn, NY (2003) and Slought Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2001). Recent exhibitions include: The Stray Show, Chicago, Ill (2004); Boys Against Girls, DC Arts Center, Washington, DC (2004); New Members Exhibition, Vox Populi, Philadelphia (2004); Works on Paper 2004, Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside, PA (2004); Vox Sells Out, Vox Populi; Philadelphia (2003); Liquid Vox, Vox Populi/In Liquid, Philadelphia (2003); In a Silent Way, Main Line Center for the Arts, Rosemont, PA (2003); 76th Annual International Competition: Photography, The Print Center, Philadelphia (2002); Electricity, Ester Klein Gallery, Philadelphia (2001); and First Blood, Ericson Gallery, Philadelphia (2001). Abrams photographs were recently published in Untitled (After Cinema), edited by Aaron Levy, (Slought Books
Philadelphia), and 24 Photographs with essays by Edward R. O'Neil, Associate Professor of Film and Television, University of Southern California. Abrams is a member of the Philadelphia collective Vox Populi and is affiliated with the Slought Foundation, Philadelphia.

Lucy O'Connell: Re-Collection Lucy O' Connell examines the compulsion to collect as part of her overall working procedure. Driven by the wistful desire to recall past events, O'Connell feels the power to collect and capture history is part of a larger collective desire to preserve our own identity. In Re-Collection, O'Connell uses the found image of the informal snapshot and recontextualizes their meaning through their placement among other photos. Like individual parts of a sentence, O'Connell lays these found photos in linear fashion--as if to be read in a specific order but without specific meaning.		Lucy O'Connell, Recollection #1 (detail) Snapshot, silver gelatin, 2002.
Divorced from the photographer's original intent, these new installations derive their meaning from the process of being "re-read". Their placement in handmade vitrine-like shelves treat the photo as a collection in a well-preserved ethnographic display.

O'Connell states, "I have become interested in snapshots because they epitomize a re-collection. They are sweet and strange, spastic palm-sized memories. They are not overworked or precious. Yet in an ordinary batch you might find a peculiar one, something unexpected, defective, and amazing. It is these mistakes that I am attempting to make. They are delicate collections of impossibility."

O'Connell received a BA in studio art and interdisciplinary sciences and studied photography and film at Glasgow School of Art. Recent exhibitions have included: Fayerweather Gallery, Charlottesville, VA (2002); Fresh Eggs, Nature Gallery, Charlottesville, VA (2002); Masquerades, Fringe Festival (2001); Machines that Save the World, Nature Gallery, Charlottesville, VA (2001); 7th Annual Juried Art Space Show, Art Space, Art Space, Charlottesville, VA (2001); Reflex, Street Level Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (2000); and Rebound, Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland (2000).

The Philadelphia Art Alliance presents
Artisans with Parkinson’s: A Juried Exhibition of Fine Art and Crafts

Satellite Gallery
Rittenhouse Hotel
210 W. Rittenhouse, Third Floor

April 2 to April 31, 2005

Coinciding with International Parkinson’s Month, members of the Parkinson’s Council will sponsor an exhibition of works by artists from the Philadelphia region. The exhibition will open to the public on Saturday April 2 and will include works of all media juried by a selective panel of established artists and arts professionals from the area.

Program Coordinator of the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at Pennsylvania Hospital, Suzanne Reichwein, is working with volunteers who are members of The Parkinson’s Council in producing a variety of events in the area throughout the year to raise awareness of Parkinson’s and the fact there is no known cause or cure at this time. The goal of the Parkinson’s Council is to increase awareness of the disease and the effort being made to combat it. Through this juried exhibition of work of artists with Parkinson’s, it is hoped that a stronger community will grow among those battling the disease and their loved ones, as well as the many working in the field of advocacy and service to patients. Funds for furthering research in new treatments and a cure for Parkinson’s will be raised through this event.

Reichwein further notes “The jurors and I are very excited about the creativity and caliber of work that has been selected for the exhibition in Philadelphia Art Alliance Satellite Gallery. “The creativity that is reflected in each of the pieces is breathtaking. This is a notable collection of a variety of media. This collection is inspiring when one reflects on the challenges that this disease presents to each artist both personally and professionally,” Jurors include Paulette Bensignor, nationally-renowned painter and printmaker, Emil DeJohn, Director of Fashion Career Placement at Drexel University, Johanna Goodman, acclaimed ceramicist and sculptor living and working in Philadelphia, and Libby Newman, former Director of the Ester M. Klein Gallery at University City Science Center.

Selected artists include: Du-Can Chan, Paul Coff, Joyce Coogan, Charles Domsky, Ruth Dipper, John Dullingham, Robin Fredenthal, Kathy Harris, Virginia Hummel, George Ivers, Rhina Kirshbaum, George Martz, Mary Mead, Richard Pryor, Nancy Tomlin, and Arlene Wolf.

Havana: The Revolutionary Moment presents a unique collection of never-before-seen photographs by veteran Magnum photographer Burt Glinn, recording Fidel Castro's historic entry into Havana in 1959.

In the introductory memoir, Glinn describes the journalistic prescience that led him to leave a New York party and travel to Havana on New Year's Eve.

Burt Glinn, "A milicia makes her stand near the university," 1959. Images © the artist, 2001; Courtesy of Umbrage Editions .

The photographs of Fidel thronged by his fellow Cubans along the road to Havana, of troops embracing, and of fierce men and women taking up arms in the streets--are full of revolutionary fervor and idealistic anticipation that characterized that moment in Cuban history. Glinn's photographs take their place among those of other Cuban photographers that have recorded the Revolution and its aftermath, including Raul Corrales, Osvaldo and Roberto Salas, and Alberto Korda. Havana: The Revolutionary Moment will be exhibition in the PAA Second Floor Galleries

The exhibition of photographs by Burt Glinn was curated by Nan Richardson/Umbrage Editions (www.umbragebooks.com) with the collaboration of Fototeca de Cuba and the Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, Florida. The exhibition premiered at Fototeca de Cuba, Habano Viejo, Cuba in 2001. The catalogue will be available for purchase during the exhibition.

Burt Glinn first became known for his coverage of the South Seas, Japan, Russia, Mexico, and California. Collaborating with author Laurens van der Post, he has produced two books: A Portrait of All the Russians and A Portrait of Japan. Glinn has previously published reportage covering the Sinai War, the U.S. Marine Invasion of Lebanon, and the integration of schools in Little Rock, AK. He is past president of the American Society of Media Photographers, and a member of the Magnum Photographic Cooperative. Glinn has had solo shows at the Photographers Gallery in London, the Nikon Gallery in New York and three exhibitions at the Sag Harbor Picture Gallery. Group exhibitions include: In Our Time at the International Center for Photography, New York and other major cities; and Magnum Cinema/Magnum East and 1968 at the Newseum, New York, NY and Washington D.C. The International Center for Photography also exhibited his photographs of the Cuban Revolution in 1996 when they acquired many of the photographs for their permanent collection. Glinn works and lives in New York City.

Throwing Lines presents new works from ceramist Nicholas Arroyave-Portela in the PAA Second Floor Galleries. The exhibition will include his latest works in the two signature vessel forms that the artist has been cultivating since the beginning of his career. These "pots," as the artist defines them, are loosely based on the conceptual shapes of vases and bowls.

Nicholas Arroyave-Portela, Slashed. Photo: Colin Campbell

Brian David Dennis: Leaning Keep

Leaning Keep is a temporary installation sculpture situated between the first and second floors of the Philadelphia Art Alliance building. Incorporating the stairs and the stained glass window located on the mezzanine level, Dennis will be erecting a series of support beams used to hold a thin screen of kraft paper, mylar, and metal leaf located in front of the window. The wall both filters and obstructs the light that normally enters the stairwell through the stained glass, metaphorically posing the question to the viewer: "can the light of Liberty shine at all if it is shrouded in security measures?"

Brian David Dennis Model for Leaning Keep
(side view), 2003. Courtesy of the artist.

Inspired by his own concerns regarding freedom of expression, Dennis addresses several thematic issues through the construction of his installation piece: safety and security through the erection of a temporary constructed environment; the link between personal expression and democracy; and the new politics of liberty and democracy in post-9/11 society. Through this installation, Dennis addresses the concerns of many contemporary artists in today's social and economic climate by focusing on the right to free expression and the erosion of the First Amendment. Daunted by the initiation of the Patriot Act as public policy, Dennis feels these timely issues face not only artists but every citizen.

Brian David Dennis studied at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA. He has had several solo exhibitions including (sunday's) BRIDGEHEAD, Ashey Gallery, Philadelphia (2002); Surfaces and Sub Surfaces, Sande Webster Gallery Philadelphia (2001); Roustabout's Hold, Fleischer Art Memorial, Philadelphia (2001); as well as six solo exhibitions at Vox Populi, Philadelphia (1988 to 2000). Dennis has shown in many prominent group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (1998); Painted Bride Arts Center (1996); Allentown Art Museum (1994); and Temple Gallery, Philadelphia (1993), among many others. Dennis is the recipient of the 2001 Challenge Grant Award from the Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial and received a 2001 Independence Foundation Fellowship Award.

In conjunction with the Philadelphia Public School System, the PAA will present a series of children's programs entitled "At Liberty: Creativity, Citizenship, and the First Amendment." In addition the PAA is collaborating with the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) to provide a two-part public lecture series:

October 20, 6 p.m. "Censorship and Propaganda Today" Speaker: Joan Bertin, Executive Director, NCAC.

Postponed until further notice
October 27, 6p.m. "Censorship and the Politics of Fear" Speaker: Svetlana Mintcheva, Director, Arts Program, NCAC.

For more information, please visit our latest news page.

Support for Leaning Keep is provided by The Philadelphia Foundation, PNC Bank and Citizen's Bank. Additional support provided by The Independence Foundation and The Philadelphia Cultural Fund.

International artist Tamar Hirschl will present a new body of mixed media, drawings and works on vinyl and paper at the Philadelphia Art Alliance [PAA] in the first floor galleries. All the works on view present her overarching interest in the dichotomies of destruction and rebirth, war and recuperation, as well as those concerns more intimate to the artist's own experience, focusing on internal and external conflicts, adaptation, and shifting cultural identities.

Tamar Hirschl, Fall (detail), 2004; Mixed media on vinyl, 105 x 196

Working with a combination of digital imaging, collage, painting, screen prints, and other mixed media, Hirschl combines a variety of source materials to connect personal memories of conflict and strife, with more recent global confrontations. The formal result is a subtle balance between explosive gestural strokes and an acute attention to iconographic detail. Hirschl creates meaning through the juxtaposition of objects, some rendered freely and others decisively, slowly developing a body of work that reads as a monumental epic.

Tamar Hirschl was born in Zagreb, Croatia and began living in Israel from 1948 until her recent move to the United States. Hirschl studied at the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem, the Tel Aviv Kalisher School of Art and State College of Art in Tel Aviv. She then received a Master's Degree in art therapy at Lesley College in Cambridge, MA.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Gregory Gallery, New York, NY (2000); Gallery Stendhal, New York, NY (2000); The Wilma Theater, Philadelphia (2000); Roy Furman Gallery, Lincoln Center, New York, NY (2000); Museum Center "Julije Klovic, Zagreb," Croatia (1999); Split Summer Festival, Croatia (1999); Beit Halochem, Tel Aviv (1989) and Olympia Park Hotel, Olympic Village, Munich, Germany (1983). Since 1999, Hirschl has resided in New York City, where she maintains a studio.

Jerusalem Films and the Government of Croatia produced a retrospective of Tamar Hirschl's work, "Bridges of Memories," [2000] narrated by Martin Sheen and directed by Jakov Sedlar.

An evening Artist's Talk will be held on November 10 at 6 p.m. in the First Floor Galleries.

Samantha Simpson will be creating a site-specific panoramic wall painting directly on the walls of the PAA third floor gallery. Often composed of large scale insects, flora, and other unusual creatures, her large scale and site-specific paintings inhabit a utopian paradise.		*Samantha Simpson, Supplicant* (detail), 2002; Ink on paper, 78 x 144 inches, Courtesy of the artist.**
Yet, the pleasurable aesthetic of her work ultimately references a deeper relationship to current cultural impulses as symbolized by excessive decoration and ornamentation. For the site-specific works at the PAA, Simpson focuses on these issues through what she has termed a "Philadelphia Bestiary."

Simpson's new work is based on the medieval concept of the Bestiary, that is, books containing drawings and text explaining the mythic and metaphorical meanings of animals. As Simpson explains "my Philadelphia Bestiary accommodates stories and drawings of real and imaginary beasts that relate to my life and the life of this City, as well as to some of the original descriptions of animals in Bestiaries and other mythological animals." The mural will contain animals and insects native to Philadelphia to create a personal narrative that fits into the schema of a larger imaginary mythological system.

Simpson received an MFA in painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA in painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Simpson has exhibited both nationally and internationally, most recently at Gallery Joe, Philadelphia (2004); Vox Populi, Philadelphia (2004); Artist in Residence Gallery, New York, NY (2004); Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX (2003); Gallery Joe, Philadelphia (2003); The Spector Gallery, Philadelphia (2003) Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY (2003); Westchester Art Center, Westchester, NY (2002) and in Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA (2001). Simpson recently became a member of the local artist collective Vox Populi and teaches at Temple University, Tyler School of Art.

An evening Artist's Talk will be held on November 2 at 6 p.m. in the third floor gallery.

Tadashi Moriyama: Recent Works

Tadashi Moriyama, Roaring Man and Two Dollar Bill with Coins, 2003; mixed media on canvas, 16 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Moriyama received a Bachelor's degree from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia and has extensive experience in illustration, cartooning, book making, graphic design print making, digital and non-digital photography and well as traditional Japanese Calligraphy. He has recently exhibited at Art in City Hall, Philadelphia, Pleiades Gallery of Contemporary Art, New York, NY, Period Gallery, University of Nebraska, and Design Festa Gallery Tokyo, Japan. Moriyama manages, Media Bureau, a new independent exhibition space located in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia.

Just as in the other fine art categories of painting and sculpture, photography as a medium began to undergo a profound change in the early twentieth century—both in terms of its aesthetics and in terms of its definitive qualities as an expressive medium. Much of the catalyst for change was due to the influence of visionary artist and critic, Alfred Stieglitz, who launched the quarterly publication Camera Work in 1903.

Presented in the second floor main galleries of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Camera Work will include over 60 photogravures and other prints produced between 1903 and 1917 and published in Camera Work.

Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, Camera Work, Number 36, October 1911.
Photogravure
Courtesy of the Erie Art Museum
Credit: The James A. Michener Museum

This publication was the vehicle that allowed photography to take an equal place among other types of artistic media and included some of the first critical commentary on photography as a fine art. Vintage copies of the publication will accompany the photographs on view.

Attempting to free photography from its role as a technological and scientific aid, Stieglitz and others critics such as P.H. Emerson and George Bernard Shaw, championed a more expressive and artistic definition of photography. "Pictorialism," a term coined by Emerson in 1886, was succinctly defined as " a man's expression by means of pictures of that which he considers beautiful in nature." This promoted the role of the photographer—now the subjective interpreter of nature and beauty—to that of a fine artist. They argued that it is the photographer's role as an artist to reveal his/her impression or "temperament" through technique, both in terms of composition and in terms of the technical aspects of development.

Along with reproducing the work of Gertrude Käsebier, Edward Steichen, Robert Demarchy, Frank Eugene, F.H. Evans, and Clarence H. White, Camera Work served several functions. It was not only a critical tool used to promote the new status of photography, but it also served to advance Stieglitz's involvement in the Photo-Succession group and his gallery 291. In addition, the publication did not limit itself to photography alone. As a system of aesthetic thought, it also served as a means of publicly disseminating works by some of the most avant-garde artists of the period by reproducing their works in its pages. It is through this publication that America was introduced to Rodin, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Alfred Maurer, and John Marin, among others. Through the juxtaposition of photography to painting, drawing, and sculpture, Stieglitz further strengthened the idea of photography as a fine art.

Camera Work is a testament to the profound economic, cultural and artistic changes of its time. Beginning with a Victorian concept of "photography-as-painting"— as espoused in Pictorialist ideology—it began in its final years to turn to a more abstracted ideal that sought to create a theory and practice that was particular to its own medium. Camera Work in its last years sought to promote a greater level of experimentation—following closely the principles other avant-garde movements such as Dada, Constructivism, and Cubism—which called for a bolder compositional structure with modern-day subjects. In this regard, it is fitting that the magazine reserved its final issues for the works of artists such as Paul Strand. This deviation would later serve as the new direction for photography, influencing a whole generation of photographers throughout Europe and the United States.
Camera Work was curated by Stephen Perloff, noted photographer and editor of The Photo Review and is sponsored at the PAA by The Honickman Foundation.

Ahmed Salvador's photographs and lightboxes are direct references to the art of observation. With fabricated settings often devised in his own studio, Salvador manipulates objects and light to create indirect references to the concept of perception itself. The manufactured views often reference a tangible object or location but through the act of photographing, they become dissolved and ineffable as a momentary glance.

Ahmed Salvador, White Landscape, 2004.
Mixed Media and debossing on foam core.
Courtesy of the artist

Salvador states "my current series consists of dioramas meant to look like photographs of planetary landscapes. They are the ultimate magnification of the thin surface of a photograph. The emulsion has evolved, as if infected, and is growing beyond itself into a primitive enhancement of its once flat surface. They quote underexposure and blur, the miscaptured landscape, as well as ideal compositions: multifaceted and mysterious, but revealing. If the photograph was once a limited material representation of reality, these shadowboxes present, with their handmade construction, the stumbling evolution of the 'light-drawn' image toward an ideal, yet ethereal representation. As traditional photography becomes less of a utility and more of a novelty, my current images eulogize the false permanency of light hitting sensitive silver."

Salvador received a MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy. Most recently, he was selected as the recipient of the 2002 Fleischer Challenge Award and has had a solo exhibition at Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, Philadelphia (2002). Group exhibitions include: Sound and Silence, Main Line Art Center, Haverford (2003); Get Out: Lighting for Urban Rooftop Environments, Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia (2002); Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia (2002); and Heads South, Dundalk Gallery, Baltimore (2002). Salvador works and lives in Philadelphia.

For ReVisionist Cinema/Triple Feature, video and sound artist Matthew Suib appropriates sources taken from film noir, Hollywood epics, and the genre of the American Western to create a new group of single-channel videos. Through the process of splicing and recombining fragments of footage, Suib dislocates images and sound from their original narrative structure, reorganizing them into new compositions. Comprehensively, these works represent a process of gathering, blending, and recreating meaning from a wealth of culturally sanctioned imagery. The resulting video often functions as a form of iconoclastic commentary, stressing an alternative underlying political or sociological theme. Works included in ReVisionist Cinema include: COCKED (2003), adopted from several American Western films of the past three decades; Birds (2004) with excerpts from the 1963 Hitchcock film The Birds; and a new work based on the Hollywood Bible Epics of the 1940s and 50s.

Suib received his BFA from the University of the Arts and exhibits widely in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago both as a filmmaker and photographer. His recent exhibition lingua cosmica has received critical attention from the New York Times and a radio interview with Joel Rose on WHYY-91FM. Other recent exhibitions include: The Harpo Marx Free-Jazz Jamboree, Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York (2003); Animations, Kunst Werke, Berlin (2003); El Mono Muy Mal, Vox Populi, Philadelphia (2003); Cine 3.0 New Media Festival, Philadelphia (2003); Seven Three Split, Chicago (2003); and In a Silent Way, Main Line Art Center, Philadelphia (2003). Suib has also exhibited at Philadelphia Museum of Art (2002); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2002 and 2001), The Hague, The Netherlands (2002); PS.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2001), The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore (1999), and The Fabric Workshop and Museum (1997); among many others. Suib is a member of the Philadelphia collective Vox Populi.

Rob Matthews limits his medium of choice for his subject to achromatic inks and pencil on paper. The settings for his subjects are often developed from sketches and photographs to study composition and lighting. Yet, the themes that he explores deal with impractical scenarios related to sleepwalking, dreams, death, etc.		Rob Matthews, The Dumbest Man Over Galveston, 2003 Pencil on paper Courtesy of the artist
Their transformation into drawings is metaphoric: the depictions are not treated as the photographic truth but as slight alterations, illustrating their own improbability.

For Matthew's exhibition at the PAA, the artist again combines what seems probable with what appears as a daydream. For his new series, The Dumbest Man, Matthews draws his inspiration from the travels of Steve Fossett, the first man to circumnavigate a hot air balloon around the Earth. Seeing the endeavor as an egoistic fantasy of a millionaire with no quantifiable results, Matthews examines the impulse behind the absurdity of such events as Fossett's and the compulsion to record them. Matthews states: "There are plenty of other journeys that could be construed as selfish dreams: the Eiffel Tower, the Space Needle, a steakhouse with big plastic steers on the outside of the building, and of course, any and all art. What is absurd to one man is a dream come true for another."

Matthews received his MFA in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University. His most recent solo exhibitions include: Holy Smokes University of the Arts, Philadelphia (2003); Sleepwalking Middle Tennessee State University (2003); Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University (1999); and My Bucket's Got a Hole in It, M. Goodman Gallery, Richmond, VA (1998). Selected group exhibitions include: Arcadia Works on Paper, Glenside, PA (2004); Wagons East, King Fisher Projects, Ridgewood, NY (2004); First Person, Gallery Schlesinger, New York, NY (2004); ACRIA's Unframed First Look, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY (2003); Douglas Dibble Memorial Auction, Hunter College, New York, NY (2003) I Saw the Light and Bling Bling, Project Room, Philadelphia (2003); Drawing for It and Red Dot, Spector Gallery, Philadelphia (2003). Matthews is the 2004 recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Award and is represented by Gallery Joe, Philadelphia.

For Julie Cardillo, the familiar in nature becomes extraordinary through the medium of painting. Cardillo researches and studies flora and fauna, magnifying their effects through a hyperreal attention to graphic detail. The resulting image is the marriage of fantastic woodland landscapes and the artist's own state of mind, fueling the atmospheric qualities of the final work. Art historical sources ranging from Italian Renaissance fresco painting to surrealist works by Rene Magritte and Georgio De Chirico inform the uncanny effects produced in the final works.		Julie Cardillo, Passing Away, 2004 Oil on canvas Courtesy of the artist
The juxtaposition of personal influences and biographical information superimposed into a landscape environment provide the works with a timeless yet poignantly contemporary quality.

Cardillo received a MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. She has had residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (1999); Chautauqua Institute, Chautauqua, NY (1999); and Academia di Belle Arte, Perugia, Italy (1997). Her work has been exhibited at: The Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery, Wayne, PA (2003); Montgomery County Community College Faculty Exhibition (2003); with solo exhibitions at the Burrison Gallery at the Faculty Club, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA (2003), and the Graduate Student Center, University of Pennsylvania, (2002). Other exhibitions include: Interlochen Gallery, MI (2001); Fox Gallery, University of Pennsylvania (2001); and Chautauqua Art Institute, Chautauqua, NY (1999). Cardillo has worked as an adjunct professor at Drexel University, and currently teaches at Montgomery County Community College.

Considered by the artist as a 30-year collaboration between photographer and sitter, Mellor captures the unconstrained quality of his subject and his surroundings, often seizing upon a moment that portrays Garvey's quintessential nature. This concentrated study of one individual-a man who is truly distinctive and genuine-is a celebration of individuality and integrity that is thoroughly inspiring.

As Owen Edwards states his introduction, "Garvey wears his true, complete, and unprotected identity at every moment, there is no self-consciousness nor social mask. . . Mellor knew he was one of those faces that is at once substantial and transparent, through which he might find a way to convey the human condition."

D.W. Mellor has been a free-lance photographer since 1973 and was a professor of photography at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia from 1989 until 1992. Mellor has had several major solo exhibitions, including: Museum of Fine Art, St. Petersburg (2003); Craig Krull Gallery, Los Angeles (1997, 1998, and 2001); Robert Klein Gallery, Boston (2000); Peng Gallery, Philadelphia (2000); Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta (1999 and 1997); and Yancy Richardson Gallery, New York (1999). Mellor's work is represented in permanent collections of major museums, including, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, the Minneapolis Museum of Art, the High Museum, Atlanta, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This is Mellor's first exhibition of large prints from the Garvey Series.

Special event, Wedenesday April 28, 5:30 to 7 p.m.: D.W. Mellor will present for a book signing of his catalogue The Garvey Series. Cocktails and dinner to follow. Please call Olivuia Antsis for details.

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Second-Floor Galleries

Hopping Fences: Influences on Modern Living
Co-curators: Melissa Caldwell, Philadelphia Art Alliance and Hilary Jay, The Design Center.

Amuneal Manufacturing		FLOAT
odg/otto design

Hopping Fences represents firms whose work are informed by several disciplines: from furniture to interior design, architecture to industrial design and engineering. Its site-specific nature presses the boundaries between art and design, personal expression and public statement. These installations will act as conceptual reflections on how design impacts, and is impacted by, modern urban living: the pace and demands, allowances and challenges.

Veyko Design

Hopping Fences invites the viewer to interact with the work and connects design principles to other expressive forms-those more intimate influences on these designers' work including: sculpture, glass blowing, collage, painting, and video art. In FLOAT's section, for instance, the audience can experience the nature of time and shadow-play as they coast on mobile translucent cubes across a giant video projection. In Qb3's installation, a sense of play and childhood wonder is evoked through an environment designed to examine the collective meaning of "home." Archetypal furniture and objects are distended and exaggerated to question the fundamental associations between place and memory.

Target stores is the premier sponsor of this exhibition with media sponsorship provided by the Philadelphia City Paper. Other sponsors include: Commerce Bank, Minima, and Pearl Pressman Liberty.

Special Event on Wednesday, February 25, 5:30 to 7 p.m.: Presentation and Martini Tasting with curator Hilary Jay. Please call Olivia Antsis for information.

Yet, the artist's focus on small peripheral pieces of information (the pattern of a dress, a gesture), are the kind of details that often function as the stongest memory triggers of past experiences. Henderson states, "In the paintings, the specific identity of the person depicted is not central to the viewer's experience. What is central is the sense of concrete experience being evoked." The immediacy of the photographic moment is transformed by Henderson--through the process of painting itself--into a meditative concentration on color, light, and composition.

Henderson received post-baccalaureate certification in studio art from Brandeis University (1997) and an MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania (2001). Recent exhibitions include: Young Painters Competition, Miami University, Oxford, OH (2004); Album (solo show), Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL (2003); Really, Gescheidle Gallery, Chicago, IL (2003); Talking Heads, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Larchmont, NY (2001); The Future is Now, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE (2001); New American Paintings, Open Studios Press Exhibition, Boston, MA (2001). She is currently a lecturer at St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia and a teacher at Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr, PA.

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Satellite Gallery
210 W. Rittenhouse Sq., Third Floor

James Moss: 0 to 43

Moss received a post-baccalaureate certificate in painting from The Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1985) and has been exhibiting his work for over 19 years. His most recent exhibitions include: Art of the State: 34th Annual Juried Exhibition, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg (2001); Creative Artists Network 1984-2000. . .In Memory of Bebe Benoliel, The Philadelphia Foundation, Philadelphia (2001); and 102nd Annual Fellowship Exhibition, Museum of American Art, PAFA, Philadelphia (2000).

Moss has also exhibited extensively at Roger Lapelle Gallery, Philadelphia (1995 to 1999) as well as the Creative Artists Network, Philadelphia (1991 to 2001).

Works by Philadelphia Women Artists at The Community Gallery of The Philadelphia Foundation

The Philadelphia Art Alliance in association with Guest Curator Barbara Wallace has organized an exhibition of eleven women artists from the Philadelphia area. Most of the artists have been exhibiting for over
thirty years and have been included in major corporate and museum collections.

Artists include: Martina Johnson-Allen, Barbara Bullock, Syd Carpenter, E. Sherman Hayman, Libby Newman, Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Alice Oh, Diane Pieri, Val Rossman, A.M. Weaver, Celestine Wilson Hughes.

The exhibition is on view through April 30th at The Philadelphia Foundation, 1234 Market Street, Suite 1800.

September 13 to December 2

On Saturday, December 13th, 2003, for one evening only, Gabe Martinez will present Confidence & Faith, a multi-media event inspired by the brilliance of Michelle Kwan, the most decorated female figure skater in US Figure Skating history. Confidence & Faith integrates film projection, live musical accompaniment produced by Relâche, installation art, and site-specific works. This performance/event will continue without interruption from 6 to 8 p.m on the first and second floors of the Philadelphia Art Alliance building.

This performance event will be by RSVP only.
Please click here to email or call 215.545.4302.
Reservations are available in fifteen minute intervals.

Gabe Martinez, a first-generation Cuban-American born in Miami, is one of the most innovative artists working in Philadelphia. Martinez's work spans the genres of photography, sculpture, installation, and performance. His interactive work often deals with themes of sexual identity, constructions of masculinity, sports, community, and the transience of life, beauty, and youth. He was recognized in 2001 by the Pew Charitable Trust's Fellowships in the Arts (a coveted $50,000 award). He has been an Artist-in-Residence and received a Project Grant from the Fabric Workshop and Museum and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, as well as a recipient of two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships. Martinez recently attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was an Associate Artist under Gillian Wearing at Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Martinez received his B.F.A. from the University of Florida, Gainsville, and his M.F.A. from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia. His work has been presented in Philadelphia at the Rosenbach Museum and Library, the Fabric Workshop & Museum, Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art. He has exhibited in New York at Thread Waxing Space, Franklin Furnace, and White Columns.

About Relâche:
Relâche Ensemble seeks to define and build a specialized repertoire of art music influenced by both popular and high art culture. Relâche's music mixes many national and international styles, such as jazz, folk, world music, indie-rock and electronica, in order to create a common ground on which audiences can enjoy familiar sounds while being challenged by new forms of musical expression. Relâche is also committed to commissioning and presenting music in interdisciplinary and inter-media contexts. In the last quarter century, Relâche has been responsible for commissioning roughly 150 world premieres, including commissions by Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. Relâche Ensemble has recorded three CDs, the latest of which, Pick It Up, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1998. For more information on Relâche and its programs, call 215-574-8248, visit www.relache.org, or send inquires to info@relache.org.

"Lyra Angelica" documents an installation created earlier this year at Nexus Foundation for Today's Art in Philadelphia.		Gabe Martinez "Lyra Angelica" 30" x 40" inkjet print 2003
This mountain of adoration acts as a homage to the most decorated figure skater in US history, Michelle Kwan. This image preserves a work which no longer exists: during the opening reception, viewers were invited to take home a stuffed animal, much in the spirit and remembrance of the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Confidence & Faith is funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pew Fellowships in the Arts.

Current:
"We cannot deal with AIDS by making moral judgements or refusing to face unpleasant facts-and still less by stigmatizing those who are infected and making out that it is all their fault. In the ruthless world of AIDS, there is no them and there is no us."
--Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations.

PANDEMIC: FACING AIDS

The exhibition, film, and public programs are all organized geographically to explore how very different cultures-- Asia, South America, India, Africa, Europe and the United States--have interpreted its impact, bringing personal stories and cultural responses to the viewer through each story and photograph.

The exhibition and programs that encompass PANDEMIC: FACING AIDS seek to make people aware of the damage wrought by AIDS, and, most importantly, of the courage and determination that activists, health professionals, public health officials, and artists all around the world have displayed in their efforts to halt the epidemic.

PANDEMIC: IMAGING AIDS, Second Floor Main Exhibition

This series of original silver gelatin and color photographs captures the range of reponses that the AIDS crisis has engendered in the past two decades, ranging from the photographic communities first controversial efforts to document the first AIDS patients, to its need to protest policy issues, to the memorializing of those who have lost their lives. Both established artists and amateur photographers are represented, each striving to visualize an otherwise invisible epidemic. From the metaphorical interpretations of hope and endurance by artists Cindy Sherman and Robert Mapplethorpe, to the photographic responses of collective activist groups such as Photovoice and VISUAL AIDS, every image tells the story of survival.

PANDEMIC is a project by Moxie Firecracker Films and Umbrage Editions, curated by Nan Richardson, Umbrage Editions with Associate Curator Lesley A. Martin. Artists in this exhibition include: Chris Steele Perkins, Paolo Pellegrin, Kristen Ashburn, Graeme Williams, Antonin Kratochvil, Joao Silva, Don McCullin, Gideon Mendel, Dieter Telemans, Geert Van Kesteren, James Nachtwey, Francisco Zizola, Tiane Doan Na Champassak, Anita Khemka, John Stanmeyer, David Butow, John Ranard, Kent Klitch, Frnak Fournier, Raymond Depardon, Joseph Sywenkyj, Aleksandr Glyadyelov, Hilda M. Perez, Gilles Peress, Nicholas Nixon, Thomas McGovern, The VISUAL AIDS Project, Robert Mapplethorpe, PHOTOVOICE/Foundation Femmes Plus, Rosalind Solomon, Jane Evelyn Atwood, Alon Reninger, Richard Renaldi, William Yang, Mary Berridge, Linda Troeller, Scott Thode, John Schlesinger, Richard Sawdon Smith, Nancy Burston, Takuya Onuki and Shintaro Shiratori, Onuki Ueda, Gran Fury, Persons with HIV/AIDS Rights Advocacy Association, Palla, Koblinger Proximity and AIDS Hilfe Wein, Ben Thornberry, Arne Svenson, Carl Tandatnick, Oscar Sanchez Gomez, Sunil Gupta, Cindy Sherman, Alessandro Balteo, Duane Michals, Phillip-Lorca Di Corcia, Genin Andrada, Doug and Mike Starn, Robert Flynt, Edward Lightner, Rotimi Fani-Katode in collaboration with Alex Hirst, Gary Schneider, John Dugdale, Bill Jacobson, Bruce Cratsley, Andres Serrano, Nan Goldin, Annie Leibowitz, David Wojnarowicz

This exhibition will be part of larger project, PANDEMIC: FACING AIDS that includes a documentary film, symposia, and educational programming. A catalogue published by Umbrage Editions will be available for purchase at $34.95 during the exhibition.

Sponsors
The Pandemic: Imaging AIDS Project is made possible through the generous sponsorship of: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Home Box Office; The AOL Time Warner Foundation; Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); M·A·C AIDS FUND and M·A·C Cosmetics ; The Elton John AIDS Foundation; The Pfizer Foundation; Doctors of the World-U.S.A.; The Brazilian Ministry of Health; Levi Strauss Foundation; The Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation; American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmfAR); Firelight Foundation; The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation; The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute; and Warner Music Group. Local sponsorship includes: Bristol Myers Squibb Virology, Ortho-Biotech Products, L.P., The Independence Foundation, The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and The Philadelphia Foundation.

Special Project Advisors include: Jacqui Ambrosini, Youth Health Empowerment Project; Kevin Conare, Executive Director, Action AIDS; Greg Goldman, Director, Metropolitan AIDS Neighborhood; Phil Grasso, Director, The Safegaurds Project; Brian M. Green, Director, Family Planning Council, Circle of Care; Lisette Shirdan-Harris; Administrator, Laborer' District Council--Prepaid Legal Fund and President, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc.; Susan Higginbotham, Executive Director, AIDS Fund; Fran Kirschner, President, PFLAG; Carole Clark Lawrence, Deputy City Representative, Arts and Culture, City of Philadelphia; Ennes Litrell, John Lutz, Director, Philadelphia Community Health Alternatives; Founder of Action AIDS; Lynn Martinsen, The Safegaurds Project (LGBT Resources); Rosalyn McPherson, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Science Center Programs; Rosalyn K. Robinson, President, The Penn Towne Chapter of the LINKS, Hal Shanis, Physician, Family Planning Council, Circle of Care; Peter Taback, Director of Communications, American Foundation for AIDS Research and Sharon Vaugn, Office of Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco.

Web Site: www.pandemicfacingaids.org

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McCarthy received his MFA in sculpture at the University of Washington, Seattle in 1993. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, most recently at Inman Gallery, Houston, TX (1998 and 1995), Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX (1996), Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Otis, OR (1991), the JPL Building, Banff, Alberta, Canada (1990) and San Jose State University, San Jose, CA (1987). Recent group exhibitions include: Postmark: An Abstract Effect, SITE, Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM (1999); Hands On Color, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA (1998); A posteriori, Charlie Uniform Tango, Dallas, TX (1998); Organic Produce, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX (1998); A Cool Show, Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, TX (1998); and Morph: Meta(Morph)osis and Bio(Morph)ism in Contemporary Sculpture, curated by Frances Colpitt, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, TX (1996).

As Tileston states, "these works speak to a world in which the beautiful and the absurd, the sacred and the mundane cooperate."

Tileston received a MFA in painting from Indiana University, Bloomington, in (1988) and a B.A. in Fine Arts at Yale University, New Haven CT (1983). Recently moving from Houston Texas, Tileston now teaches painting at the University of Pennsylvania. Recent solo exhibitions include: University of New Mexico Art Gallery, Albuquerque, NM (2000); University of Texas at San Antonio, TX (1998); John Sommers Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (1998); Lawing Gallery, Houston, TX (1995 and 1997); and Longview Museum of Art, Longview, TX (1994). Prominent group exhibitions include: Now Serving, Art In General, New York, NY (2002); Viewing Room, PPOW Gallery, New York, NY (2002); The Hot Show, Arlington Museum of Art , Arlington, TX (1999); Texas Abstract: New Painting in the Nineties, McKinney Art Center, Dallas, TX; Bridge Center for Contemporary Art, El Paso; Museum of the Southwest, Midland, TX; Art Pace, San Antonio, TX (1995-96); and several exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1988-1995). Cures for Cosmophobia is Tileston's first solo exhibition in Philadelphia.

Web site: www.jackietileston.info

Exploring the possibilities of story-telling, the events in McDade's narratives-everyday observances or interactions with others--are often depicted within a single metaphorical moment, turning the trivial into a monumental epic.

As McDade states, "one could categorize many of my works as creative non-fiction. And others might be considered non-objective storytelling. Though some might just come forward and call them all lies." Eric McDade received his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1996. He has had solo exhibitions at the Painted Bride Art Center (2002), Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery (2002), and has had numerous group exhibitions including: Hopscotch: Associative Leaps in the Construction of Narrative, Painted Bride Art Center (2002); Red Dot 2, Spector Gallery (2001); Buffered, Basekamp Gallery (2001); and Dolls, Nexus Gallery (1999). McDade lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

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Satellite Gallery

Antonio Grimaldi: Only in My Dreams

The Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 W. Rittenhouse Sq. Third Floor

His landscapes are a fictional conglomeration of these sources, creating what the artist terms "the pure essence of the subconscious with no distractions."

Grimaldi immigrated to the United States from Rome, Italy in 1996 after studying sculpture the Academia di Belle Arti. In Rome, Grimaldi founded The Art Studio, a mini academy of fine arts attended by sixty students ages five through ten. Grimaldi has had several exhibitions in both Rome and in Philadelphia and now teaches basic art theory and sculpture for grades one through five at theVillanova Academy for Honor Studies, Villanova, PA.

May 15 to August 31, 2003

Urban Sanctuaries

Public Reception: May 15, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Public Opening Reception at outdoor sites: Saturday, May 31, 2 to 4 p.m. (rain date: Sunday, June 1, 2 to 4 p.m.)

On View May 15 to August 31, 2003 at the Philadelphia Art Alliance
On View May 31 to September 28, 2003 at outdoor sites in North Philadelphia near Taller Puertorriqueno

Urban Sanctuaries is a collaborative exhibition project between the Philadelphia Art Alliance and Taller Puertorriqueno, Inc. Three new art installations have been commissioned by the Art Alliance and Taller Puertorriqueno for this project. Each addresses urban blight by rethinking the "sanctuary" in a non-religious context. Through concurrent indoor and outdoor exhibitions, this project explores how art can help combat urban blight by transforming vacant lots and imaginatively re-envisioning urban space. The participating artists are: Iris Brown with Pepón Osorio, Doris Nogueira-Rogers, and Jonas dos Santos.

A publication documenting the creation of the "urban sanctuaries" and their installation at both the Art Alliance and the outdoor sites will be available in July.

Established in 1974 by local Puerto Rican artists and community activists, Taller Puertorriqueno, located at 5th and Lehigh Streets in North Philadelphia, presents arts and culture of the Latino community through grounded artistic and cultural services. Taller Puertorriqueno is dedicated to the preservation, development and promotion of Puerto Rican and Latin American artistic and cultural traditions.

Please refer to or request a copy of the full press release addressing the exhibition concept, lot locations, project descriptions, artists' biographies, and public programs (trolley tours, lunch-time brown bag lectures, and a panel discussion). Support for this project has been provided by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and The Philadelphia Cultural Fund.

First-Floor Galleries:

The American River

The American River examines the special place that rivers hold in the collective American imagination and their contemporary uses. This exhibition features paintings, photographs, drawing, monotype prints, and mixed media works that directly or indirectly address the roles of rivers. Ideas such as the New World Eden, the pastoral landscape ideal, and the legacy of the Hudson River School of painting, as well as the industrial history and current environmental and development issues impacting American waterways are addressed.

Don Burmeister,
Holland Tunnel Vent, 2001
c-print, 30' x 30'
Courtesy of the artist

The PAA hosts selections from this traveling exhibition, which has been organized by the Great River Arts Institute (Walpole, NH), in its first-floor galleries. Twenty-one artists from the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest regions have been selected by PAA Curator Amy Ingrid Schlegel for presentation in Philadelphia. The exhibition was juried by: Carl Belz independent curator and director emeritus of the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Jeffrey Rosenheim, curator of photography, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Linda Simmons, curator emeritus, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Juror and Curator Carl Belz explains that "for many of the artists, reverie takes place at a great distance from the river, reminding us of nature’s vast and irresistible embrace others at the same time, bring us close enough to visually caress the river’s sparkling surface; and yet another group . . . appear to immerse us in the river itself, surrounding us completely with its shifting light and color and its constant movement."
The artists selected are: Eric Aho, Ahren Ahrenholtz, Nancy Albert, Claire Asch, Stanley Bielen, Christopher Boas, Susan Brearey, David Brewster, Don Burmeister, Tricia Rose Burt, Steve Graber, Stephen Hannock, Lisa Heffernan, Ted Hendrickson, Pamela Lawson, Tom Leaver, Gale Marks, Frederick Marsh, Mimi Oritsky, Craig Stockwell, and Paul Taylor.

An illustrated, 32-page color catalogue is available for purchase through the PAA for $10.

Third Floor Gallery

Leah Rachel Macdonald,
Buttons, 2003
Photograph with beeswax and oil
16" x 16"
Courtesy of the artist

Leah Rachel MacDonald: Reverie

Suspended between the mediums of photography and painting, Leah Rachel MacDonald presents a new body of mixed media works in the PAA’s Third Floor Gallery. Focused on the female form, MacDonald shoots and selects photographs of models and then manipulates the images through the application of oil and beeswax to create singular works. The exhibition title "reverie," meaning "abstracted musings or dream-like events," explains MacDonald’s working method as she layers her photographs, disguising or highlighting certain segments of the composition.

MacDonald explains her process as "a constant urge to layer, collect, scratch, and polish my photographs. I use paper as though it were my own skin, pulling it, peeling it away, washing it, painting it, and tearing it . . . each piece becomes an artifact of my life experience."

MacDonald received her MFA in 1998 from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA. She has had several solo exhibitions in both San Francisco and Philadelphia, including: Body Manipulations, Artforms, Manayunk, PA (2001); Paintings from the Attic, La Columbe, Manayunk, PA (2000); The Baby Doll Show, Atlas, San Francisco, CA (1999); and Relent, Myrtle Street Gallery, San Francisco, CA (1998). MacDonald has been living and working in Philadelphia since 1998.

Satellite Gallery
The Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 W. Rittenhouse Sq. Third Floor

Brian H. Peterson
Brian H. Peterson presents a large series of silver gelatin photographs from his Water Music Series at the PAA Satellite Gallery located that the Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 Rittenhouse Sq., third floor. Capturing the ephemeral effects of water and its surroundings, Peterson concentrates on the patterns made by its natural movement, suggesting a rhythm or dance. Peterson will also present selections from two earlier series, Forest Light (1992-1999) and Rock Forms (1986-1995).

Brian H. Peterson,
Water Music Series #19
1997 Silver Gelatin Print
Courtesy of the artist

Peterson has had more than 25 solo exhibitions since 1980. His work is in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum, the Library of Congress, the Denver Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Dayton Art Institute, and the State Museum of Pennsylvania. He has received two Fellowships for Visual Arts Criticism from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (1988 and 1993).

Peterson is also the Senior Curator at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA and has been responsible for the museum’s exhibition program since 1993. He is the editor and co-author of Pennsylvania Impressionism (co-published by the Michener and the University of Pennsylvania Press) and is currently organizing a retrospective exhibition focusing on the early-twentieth century painter Robert Spencer, scheduled to open in 2004.

The Philadelphia Art Alliance (PAA) is committed to exploring the visual, performing, and literary arts within a setting that encourages spirited exchange between all those whose lives have been enriched by the arts. Our commitment is the belief that the arts provide meaningful insights into the most important issues facing contemporary society.

February 11 to May 4, 2003

Reception: February 11, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Second Floor Galleries

Pictures Tell the Story: Ernest C. Withers

The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to announce the exhibition "Pictures Tell the Story": Ernest C. Withers, which includes 125 black-and-white photographs that capture the range of Withers' interests as a participant-observer of black life in the South, primarily from the 1950s to the early 1970s. Working as a self-employed photographer in Memphis, Tennessee since 1950, Ernest Withers could be called the original photographer of the Civil Rights movement, the baseball players of the Diamond League, and the blues and jazz performers in his hometown of Memphis.

This first major presentation in Philadelphia of the photography of Ernest C. Withers will be held February 11 to May 4, 2003 at the Philadelphia Art Alliance located at 251 S. 18th St., Philadelphia, between Locust and Spruce Streets. Suggested donation is $5. Please call 215-545-4302 for more information. A public opening reception will be held on Tuesday, February 11, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the PAA. Ernest Withers will be present. Mr. Withers will be available for press interviews on February 11 by appointment. Please call the PAA to schedule an appointment. Group tours of the exhibition are available by appointment (call 215-545-4302).

"We are truly excited and honored to bring the photography of Ernest C. Withers to the people of Philadelphia," said Sylvia Watts McKinney, executive director of the Philadelphia Art Alliance. "The poignant and powerful events he captured in photographs, indeed, remind all of us about the pain and triumph during this time in history and allow us to reflect upon the process of achieving justice for all Americans." An important aspect of this project is the PAA's collaboration with The LINKS, Inc. Penn Towne Chapter, a local chapter of the national African American women's leadership organization. "We are delighted to be a collaborator with the Art Alliance on this important exhibition because of its relevance to the African American community nationally," said Scheryl Glanton, president of The LINKS, Inc. Penn Towne Chapter. "Our mission is to bring awareness of the contributions of African American artists, such as Ernest Withers, to a wider audience."

Withers photographed most of the major Civil Rights events in the South.
Withers was the only photographer on the first desegregated city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This event culminated the 1956 bus boycott led by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1957, Withers photographed the court-ordered school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, presided over by the National Guard.
In late March 1968, Withers helped to make the "I Am A Man" signs carried by striking Sanitation Workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Some of his best-known photographs were captured at this event.
In early April 1968, Withers was on the scene of the assassination, aftermath, and funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis.
In addition to photographing the Civil Rights movement, Withers photographed portraits of baseball icons such as Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson, as well as up-and-coming blues and jazz performers such as B. B. King, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin.

Withers also photographed other aspects of black life and people who never became famous. Since 1950, he has been a self-employed photographer and for many years earned a living by making house calls to photograph portraits of black families. His Withers has called his trade "the black side of life" (or what at the time was called "segregated Negro Memphis"), the invisible part of American society in the 1950s and 1960s that the mainstream press did not cover.

"Pictures Tell the Story" has been organized by The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA and the PAA's presentation has been underwritten in part by The Met Life Foundation, Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation, and The LINKS, Inc. Penn Towne Chapter, with in-kind support from the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, Synterra Partners, NBC-10 TV, and WYBE TV.

Exhibition Publication
"Pictures Tell the Story": Ernest C. Withers is accompanied by a major monograph on Withers with essays by Brooks Johnson, exhibition curator, F. Jack Hurley, distinguished photographic historian, and Daniel J. Wolff, fiction and popular music writer. The book is available for purchase for $38 (plus postage) through the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Professional Background:
Until recently, Ernest Withers' photographs were better known than he was. During the 1950 and 1960s, his photographs circulated among African-American newspapers and publications nationally. He often put himself at great personal risk by photographing Civil Rights protests and marches. To earn money to support his family, Withers sold undeveloped rolls of film to white photographers who did not get as close to incidents of civil unrest as Withers did. He was not credited as the photographer when these images were in turn sold to the mainstream media. Consequently, many images in circulation have not been properly credited as by Ernest Withers until recently, since 1992, when he started to exhibit his photographs in museums

Special Events:
As part of its Great Writers Series, the PAA hosts a lecture and discussion on African American fiction writer James Baldwin at the PAA on Tuesday, February 18 at 7 p.m. Prof. Roland Williams of Temple University will speak on "James Baldwin: The Conundrum of Color." Admission is $5 (general public) and is free for PAA Members.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a one-day symposium is planned for Friday, April 11, 2003 to be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The Keynote Speaker is Phoebe Haddon, professor of law, Temple University. Please consult the Latest News Page of our website for the symposium schedule and a roster of speakers. More information will be released closer to the event date.

First Floor Galleries
February 11 to May 4, 2003
Reception: February 11, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Gallery A: Stuart Shils

The PAA is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Stuart Shils' work in Center City Philadelphia since 1999. Shils presents his most recent body of oils and monotypes created during his latest trip to the coast of North Mayo in Ireland. These small scale works are a continuation of a larger body of landscape paintings, representing over a decade of summer excursions to the Irish Coast. Working in the plein-air tradition of painting on site out-of-doors, Shils descibes these abstract works as the results of "the tension between seeing and feeling nature . . .and the sensuous connection between light and space."

The foundation of Shils' work is rooted in 19th century Romantic landscape painting. Shils describes his working method as a mystical experience that connects interior sensation to the natural world: "I cannot paint without a mind and eye to the external world. That connection with sensation is the point of departure and within the tradition that I imagine myself working, looking out to nature is the crux. But paradoxically, at a certain point, it is to get deeper into the nature of painting. . . it becomes a reflection of internal resonance."

Shils (b. 1954) received his MFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1982. He has had many solo exhibitions, including most recently: Fenton Gallery, Cork, Ireland (2001); Davis and Langdale (2001); Woodmere Art Museum (2001); Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2001); Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, NY (1997, 1999, 2000); Mangel Gallery (1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999); Barton/Ryan Gallery, Bosotn, MA (1999); and Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA (1997). Shils has also received numerous awards from: The Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellowship, Bellycastle, Ireland (1994, 1999); NEA/Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship (1996); Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Visual Arts State Fellowship (1996); and Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (1994). Shils lives and works in Philadelphia. He is represented by Davis and Langdale, New York.

Shils will present his work at a Brown Bag Lunch Lecture on Wednesday March 19, 12:15 to 1 p.m.

February 11 to May 4, 2003
Reception: February 11, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Gallery B: Alice Oh

Phases of Conception

Alice Oh presents a new site-specific work and four new paintings in her Phases of Conception series. Oh's abstract paintings are inspired by her fascination with biology and micro-organisms. Carefully selected forms from nature, ranging from cell samples of blood to microscopic views of plants and berries allow Oh to explore her interest in the minute details of nature that bind all organic material. Another major influence on her work is color theory. She considers the work of the 19th century painter Pierre Bonnard an important source of inspiration.

Oh's site specific work for the PAA will extend the themes behind the Phases of Conception series. Oh manipulates the elliptical motif predominant in previous works by using new materials to continue the forms off the two-dimensional canvas and onto the floor, walls, and ceiling of the gallery. The new paintings and the installation will act as an exploration of the elliptical form in both material as well as hue, value, and saturation.

Alice Oh was born in Seoul, Korea and received her MFA from Yale University in 1994. She has had solo exhibitions at: Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College, Haverford, PA (2002); Gallery 817, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia (2002); Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia (2000); Nexus Foundation for Today's Art (2000); and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2000). Group exhibitions include: Keisho, Keisho Art Center, Keisho, Japan (2000); Nexus and Just Made, Nexus Foundation for Today's Art (2000, 1999); Faculty Exhibition, Levy Gallery, Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia (1998); Color Scheme, Axis Gallery, Philadelphia (1997); and Images, Zoller Gallery, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA (1996).

Oh is a 2000 recipient of a Visual Artist Award from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts. She has also received the Seedling Grant (2000) and a Window of Opportunity Award (1999) from the Leeway Foundation. Oh works and resides in Philadelphia and is Assistant Professor at the Moore College of Art and Design.

Oh will present her work at a Brown Bag Lunch Lecture: Wednesday April 16, 12:15 to 1 p.m.

February 11 to May 4, 2003
Third Floor Galleries

Elizabeth Doering,

Elizabeth Hoak Doering presents a new body of work that continues her interest in the use of pieces of driftwood chosen from the shores of the Delaware River. In an attempt to reflect its previous use, Doering incorporates the found wood into a larger body of experiments that reactivate the objects as dynamic story-tellers of their own history. Doering uses the selected pieces of driftwood to create a version of an automatic writing machine suspended by cables and activated by natural activity in the room (human movement around the work, changes in temperature, air movement). She terms these active works "sculpture drawings" or "kinetographs." These active objects further her investigation into the concepts of memory, transformation, substance, and energy. These active projects within the PAA's Third Floor Gallery will be accompanied by finished drawings made by the objects at different sites along the Delaware River.

Doering received her MFA in sculpture from the School for the Arts, Boston University in 1997 and received an MA in arts education at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia in 1991. Her recent solo exhibitions include: On the Edge, Philadelphia Sculptors, Long Beach Island, NJ (2002); Wind in Armenia: New Work, University City Arts League, Philadelphia (2002); Initiation (Pewter + Holy Water), Episcopal Cathedral of Philadelphia (2002); Midstream: Homage to Change, Nexus Foundation for Today's Art-Community Gallery (2002); Church of Memory, The Monagri Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art Archangelos Monastery, Monagri, Cyprus (2001); Kyklos Gallery, Cyprus (1998); and The USIA American Center, Nicosa, Cyprus (1998). Other group exhibitions include Multiples, Main Line Center for the Arts, Haverford, PA (2000); and Sea@net, Site Installation with Praxis in the Akamas, Cyprus (2000).

Doering was a Fulbright Fellow in Sculpture in 1997 and 1998 in Cyprus. She received at Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity Award in 2000. She is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Doering will present her work at a Brown Bag Lunch Lecture: Wednesday April 2, 12:15 to 1 p.m.

January 4 to April 27, 2003:
Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery
The Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 W. Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor

Sonya Pollack: The Cuba Series

Sonya Pollack presents a new body of large-scale oil paintings that derive from the study of deteriorated walls she discovered during a recent trip to Cuba. The abstracted results are what she designates as "the unseen" from the walls that are the sources for her work. By imagining that which is absent, Pollack intends her abstract paintings to "pass the intellect and directly go to the gut."

Pollack studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and received her BFA at the Philadelphia College of Art in 1973. She has had several significant solo and group exhibitions including: Critic's Choice, Main Line Art Center (2002); 21st Competition and Exhibition, Washington Square East Galleries (curated by Ealan Wingate, director of Gagosian Gallery, New York,1998); Challenge Exhibition, Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial (1999); Four Philadelphia Painters, Philadelphia Art Alliance (1991); Solo Exhibition, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA (1987); and Third Street Gallery, Philadelphia (1982 and 1984).

Pollack has been the recipient of numerous awards, including: Tobeleah Wechsler Award, Cheltenham Center for the Arts (selected by Charlotta Kotik, curator of contemporary art, Brooklyn Museum of Art); Alexander Award, Cheltenham Center for the Arts (selected by Terrie Sultan, then curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.); the Gimble Award, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; and the Drake Award, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

December 5, 2002 to February 2, 2003

First Floor Galleries

Stepping through the Ashes: Photographs by Eugene Richards
Interviews by Janine Altongy
Organized by the Aperture Foundation; sponsored by The Honickman Foundation

The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to host the first exhibition in Philadelphia of eminent photojournalist Eugene Richards's work. Richards is renowned for his publications of black and white images that explore difficult social issues, ranging from emergency room care, to families living in poverty, to drug addiction, to gun violence. On view from December 5 to February 2, 2003, Richards's most recent project, in collaboration with Janine Altongy, is titled Stepping Through the Ashes, a phrase invoked in a eulogy for a fallen firefighter. Richards's photographs of the aftermath of September 11th in New York are paired with excerpts of interviews conducted by Altongy. Richards draws broader historical significance from Ground Zero than its designation as the site of the former World Trade Center. He regards it as an "ever-evolving repository for the missing, a focal point for grieving, for remembering, for reflection, for self-examination." He also draws comparisons with the Warsaw Ghetto, Sarajevo, the firebombing of Dresden, the blitz on London, and Hiroshima--other ruined cities where innocent lives were lost.

Altongy interviewed firefighters, a police officer, an equity trader, a building restoration worker, a funeral director, an office worker who was evacuated from the South Tower, and a father who lost his only child, among others. Richards's photographs and Altongy's excerpted interviews compliment and reinforce one another in both the exhibition and the accompanying eponymous book, published by Aperture and available for purchase through the PAA.

Eugene Richards studied photography at MIT and is the author of eleven books. Richards has also worked as a freelance editorial photographer for publications such as LIFE, The New York Times Magazine, The London Sunday Times and Granta. Richards is the recipient of numerous photography awards, including the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Journalism Award for his coverage of the disadvantaged. Richards is also the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and OSI Project on Death In America. Richards's first book was Dorchester Days (1978; reprinted in 2001). His subsequent books include: Exploding Into Life (1986) which won the Nikon Book of the Year award; Below the Line: Living Poor in America (1987), for which he was named ICP Photojournalist of the Year; Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (1994) received the Kraszna-Krausz Award for Photographic Innovation; and Americans We (1994) won the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award. Richards' film, but, the day came (2000), won the Double Take Jury Award for Best Short Film, the Eastman Kodak Cinematography Award and the Best Documentary Award at the Hope Film Festival. A touring retrospective of Richards's work premiered at the Rencontres Inernationales de la Photographies in Arles, France in July 1997.

Janine Altongy is a certified social worker, writer, video editor, and documentary film producer. Her collaborative projects with Eugene Richards include two books (Below the Line: Living Poor in America and Homeless in America), a fundraising book and film about Incarnation Children's Center, a New York City residence for children with HIV and AIDS, and Richards's award-winning short documentary film But, the day came, which she co-produced. Altongy is co-director of Many Voices, a not-for-profit media group in Brooklyn that produces socially-concerned books and films.

December 5, 2002 to February 2, 2003
Second Floor Galleries

The 2002 Leeway Foundation Award Recipients Photography/Works on Paper

The Philadelphia Art Alliance continues its commitment to hosting exhibitions of the Leeway Foundation's visual arts recipients current work. (The Print Center, located at 1614 Latimer St., Philadelphia, will host a concurrent exhibition of six of the award winners.) The eight Emerging and Established artists in photography and works on paper featured at the PAA are: Barbara Bullock (Bessie Berman Award); Tara Goings (Award of Achievement); Rachel Stecker (Inspiration Award); Yukie Kobayashi (Inspiration Award); Melina Hammer (Inspiration Award); Zoe Strauss (Seedling Award); Adrienne Stalek (Seedling Award); Karen Fogarty (Seedling Award). This is the fourth collaboration between the PAA and the Leeway Foundation.

The Leeway Foundation was established in 1993 by artist Linda Lee Alter to promote the welfare of women and to benefit the arts. The Foundation's grant programs support outstanding, dedicated women artists in the Philadelphia five-county area and encourage their increased recognition and representation in the community. The recipient artists were selected by a three-person panel that possessed expertise in the overlapping disciplines of photography and works on paper: Judith Brodsky, Professor Emerita at Rutgers University and founder of Rutgers Center for Innovate Print and Paper; Jan Howard, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design; and Linda Lee Alter, painter and current board member of the Leeway Foundation. Please click here for more information on the Leeway Foundation.

Barbara Bullock is the recipient of the $50,000 Bessie Berman Grant which honors the founder's grandmother and is presented annually to a distinguished woman artist 50 years or older. Bullock has had several solo exhibitions at: Mercer County College, Mercer, PA (2002); Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center, Camden, NJ (2000); Penn State University, State College, PA (1999); the Wilmington Arts Commission, Wilmington, DE (1990); the African American Cultural Museum, Philadelphia (1988); and Howard University, Washington, DC (1986). She is also the recipient of several awards including: Pew Fellowship in the Arts Award (1997); Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (1994); and a Public Art Commission Award at the Philadelphia International Airport.

Tara Goings is the recipient of the Award for Achievement of $20,000. Goings received her MFA from Indiana University and is the Director of Mangel Gallery, Philadelphia. She has had solo exhibitions at Schmidt Dean Gallery, Indiana University, and Tyler School of Art Galleries, Elkins Park, PA. In 1999 Goings was awarded a Window of Opportunity Grant from the Leeway Foundation and received the Rohm and Haas Purchase Prize in 1988.

Rachel Stecker is the recipient of the Leeway Inspiration Awards of $7,500. Stecker received a BFA in 2001 from the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA and has had several exhibitions during her study at the Tyler School of Art. In 2001, Stecker received the Custom Color photography award and also received the Rhode Island School of Design Photography Award (1997).

Yukie Kobayashi is the recipient of the Leeway Inspiration Awards of $7,500. Kobayashi received an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia and is an art teacher at the Cheltenham Center for the Arts. She has had a solo exhibition at Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia, PA and has also exhibited at VAM Gallery, Budapest, Hunagary (2001) the American Culture Center, Damascus, Syria (2000); and Common Ground Gallery, Budapest, Hungary (1999). Kobayashi was featured in the "Window on Broad" at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia (2001) and the Works on Paper 2001 juried exhibition. She has received: the Charles E Durtow Award in Sculpture (1999); the Ward Prize in Sculpture (1998): and the Angelo Pinto Prize for Experimental Work (1998)

Melina Hammer is the recipient of the Leeway Inspiration Awards of $7,500. Hammer received her BFA at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia (1998) and also studied at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Exhibitions include: Traumatized Spaces, HammerSpace, PA (2002); Le Grange National Biennial (2000); About Face, St. Louis Artists Guild, MO (2000); and 9th Annual Juried Exhibition, Elizabethtown College, PA (2000).

Zoe Strauss is the recipient of the Seedling Award of $2,500. Strauss received a BA in Women's Studies from Temple University and is the Art Director for the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. Adrienne Stalek is the recipient of the Leeway Seedling Award of $2,500. Stalek received her MFA from Tyler School of Art and is the Assistant Dean of the University of the Arts Sculpture Department. Recent exhibitions have been at: Abington Art Center, Jenkintown, PA (2002 and 2000); The Philadelphia, Sketch Club (2002); The University of the Arts (2001 and 2002); and the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery‹Window on Broad, Philadelphia, PA. She has recently received the Richard Guggenheim Award for Sculpture (2002);

Karen Fogarty is the recipient of the Leeway Seedling Award of $2,500. Fogarty has studied at the Moore College of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She has also be an art instructor at Wayne Art Center. In addition to several exhibitions at PAFA, Fogarty has exhibited at the Artists House, Philadelphia (1999, 2000, 2001); and the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Philadelphia (2000).

December 5, 2002 to February 2, 2003
Third Floor Gallery:

Dommert Phillips: 9 storeys (Andrew Phillips, Alice Dommert)
The team of Alice Dommert and Andrew Phillips present a series of architectural projects that span the varied and extensive history of the firm. Models, photographs, drawings, and built objects will document both built and unbuilt works. Dommert/Phillips provides planning, design, and production services to institutions and individuals that include: programming, site analysis, planning, architectural design, interior design, and exhibition development and design. Dommert and Phillips find that the field of architecture and exhibit design mutually inform each other in their practice.

Alice Dommert is an exhibit designer and a licensed architect. Recent projects include a ten year Visitor Program Plan for the Morris Arboretum and a 15,000 square fool schematic exhibit design for the Mercer Museum. She is currently planning and developing an outdoor interpretive signage system for Philadelphia's Foundation for Architecture.

Andrew Phillips is a licensed architect who has worked on a wide array of educational, recreational, and residential projects. Recent projects include: Kakum National Park Visitor's Center in Ghana, a Visitor's Pavilion for Reiman Gardens at the Iowa State University and new loft offices for Ballentyne Brumble Communications. Current projects include: the Fruit House at Longwood Gardens in Kennet Square, PA; and a residence and studio for a painter in Narberth. In 2001, Phillips received the AIA Philadelphia Chapter Young Architect Award.

Dual Identities: Seven Philadelphia Artists/Academics
Linda Brenner | Richard Hricko | Paul Hubbard | David Kettner
Dona Lantz | Gerald Nichols | Joshua Mosley

"Dual Identities" introduces the work of three artists new to Philadelphia (recent arrivals from San Francisco, Chicago, and London) and reintroduces four artists who are long-time Philadelphia faculty but whose work has not been exhibited recently in a concentrated manner. These five featured schools are: Moore College of Art and Design; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Tyler School of Art/Temple University; the University of the Arts; and the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibition showcases seven artists of merit who either have difficulty interfacing with the commercial gallery system because they are devoted primarily to their teaching and/or (in three cases) administrative responsibilities as departmental chairs or deans (so that they do not have adequate time to seek out exhibition opportunities aggressively), or because their work is non-commercial or experimental in nature. The exhibition aims to advance an understanding of how certain artists' studio practice and teaching practice mutually inform one another as "dual identities. The curatorial angle of this exhibition focuses on a type of contemporary artist often overlooked by critics and curators because he/she is not as visible on the exhibition circuit and not primarily motivated by current trends and fashionable discourses.

The participating artists are: Linda Brenner (sculpture; Pennsylvania Academy); Richard Hricko (drawing/printmaking; Tyler School of Art); Paul Hubbard (sculpture; Moore College); David Kettner (drawing, collage; University of the Arts); Dona Lantz (photography; Moore College); Gerald Nichols (sculpture; University of the Arts); Joshua Mosley (digital animation/film; University of Pennsylvania).

The criteria employed in organizing this exhibition were that: the artist should not currently have gallery representation in Philadelphia or elsewhere; the artist should be an appointed faculty member, rather than adjunct faculty; the artist should not have had a solo exhibition in Philadelphia within the last five years; the artist's studio practice should have a clear link to his/her teaching practice; a range of artistic practices (photography, sculpture, drawing, collage, printmaking, digital animation) should be reflected in the aggregate selection of artists.

September 12 - November 24, 2002:
First Floor (Gallery A)

David Slovic
Philadelphia architect David Slovic's first solo exhibition of abstract photographic collages composed from light patterns reflected from architectural details.

September 12 - November 24, 2002:
First Floor (Gallery B):

Wlodzimierz Ksiazek
Solo exhibition of new large- and medium-scale oil paintings by this nationally-recognized, mid-career, Polish-born artist based in New England. A concurrent exhibition of Ksiazek's work is on view at Kouros Gallery, New York, NY from mid-September to mid-October; an illustrated catalogue is available.

"Wlodzimierz Ksiazek's Resistnat, Resilient Paintings," essay by Amy Ingrid Schlegel

September 12 - November 24, 2002
Third Floor Gallery:

Anna-Maria Vag: Magyarorszag (Hungary): What It Was, What It is
Black-and-white photographs taken on a trip throughout Hungary in the late 1990s by this emerging first-generation Hungarian artist based in New Jersey.

Satellite Gallery (September 6 to December 29, 2002)

David Foss
New abstract paintings by this Philadelphia artist.

Sponsored by PrideFest America; organized by the Philadelphia Art Alliance, in cooperation with the Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY, and Muna Tseng.

Photographer Tseng Kwong Chi (1950-1990) was born in Hong Kong, emigrated to Vancouver, Canada with his family at age 10, received artistic training in Paris, and settled in New York City in the late 1970s. Active in New York during the 1980s, before his untimely death from AIDS in 1990, Tseng Kwong Chi's contribution to postmodern photography is examined in this first-ever retrospective of his work, organized by the Philadelphia Art Alliance's curator Amy Ingrid Schlegel, in cooperation with the Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY and estate executor Muna Tseng, and sponsored by PrideFest America, the nation's largest annual gay and lesbian symposium and festival, held in Philadelphia.

Selections from Tseng's best-known photographic series East Meets West will be displayed along with other, lesser-known bodies of non-commercial work, Party of the Year, Metropolitan Museum of Art (1980), photographs of Keith Haring making his renowned subway drawings (1982-85), and collaborative series of photographs among Tseng Kwong Chi, Keith Haring, and choreographer/dancer Bill T. Jones (1983). In addition, the exhibition will include a cross-section of Tseng's commercial photography for publications such as The SoHo Weekly News, Vogue, House & Garden, GQ, and Vanity Fair.

Public Opening Reception for all Exhibitions
Friday, March 22, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

First-Floor Galleries:
March 14 to May 5

Gallery A
Stuart Netsky: Beyond the Forest

The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Stuart Netsky. Stuart Netsky: Beyond the Forest, on view in the PAA’s first floor from March 19 to May 5, premiers seven new oil, latex enamel and acrylic paintings on linen, fabric, and vinyl by this highly regarded Philadelphia native. Netsky’s bold new paintings are colorful, complex compositions involving multiple layers of imagery that derive from still life, the decorative arts, and abstraction. Netsky employs a variety of techniques including stenciling and pouring as well as painterly abstraction. The works reference movie titles that hold significance for the artist. Netsky’s paintings are on view courtesy of Locks Gallery, Philadelphia.

Of this new body of work, the artist says: "I have incorporated increasing formal complexity in the work in order to test conventional ideas of beauty in painting, and to arrive at a newer, more extreme sense of what beauty can be."

Stuart Netsky was born, raised, and educated in Philadelphia and continues to reside here. He holds a B.S. degree from Drexel University, an M.A. from Philadelphia College of Art, and a MFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Currently Netsky is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Philadelphia University, the University of the Arts, and Drexel University. He has had solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA (1993), Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York, NY (1999-2000), and at Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA (1995, 1999), and has been included in numerous group exhibitions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and the San Francisco Art Institute. He has also exhibited his work in Brazil and Great Britain. His work is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, the Johnson and Johnson corporate collection as well as many private collections. Stuart Netsky is a 1995 recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Gallery B
Shauna Frischkorn: The Great Outdoors

Shauna Frischkorn’s large-scale photographs are the visual embodiment of the leisure and travel industry in American culture. Based on the patterns decorating the sides of recreational vehicles and campers, these designs are manufactured to be symbols of speed and comfort. Through the close cropping and manipulation of the image, they are distilled into abstract compositions of color and light. As Frischkorn states, these commonplace patterns, hardly noticed on the sides of vehicles, are ultimately metaphors for our own culture’s pre-fabricated and mediated experience of the "great outdoors."

About the Great Outdoors series, Frischkorn writes: "My RV photographs are firmly rooted in America’s tradition of travel photography. . . Just as the camper epitomizes America’s optimism, its spirit of adventure, and its love for ‘the road,’ so too the camper raises questions about our relationship to the environment and our drive to conquer the wilderness. Even the concept of a travel trailer suggests an intrusion of the conveniences of one place onto another. These audacious panoramic ‘color fields,’ obviously symbolize speed and progress in reference to the expansive American landscape. They also serve to remind the viewer, however, that ‘visiting’ nature and travelling with all the ‘comforts of home’ is in reality a synthetic experience."

Shauna Frischkorn received her MFA in photography at the State University of New York at Buffalo and is currently an assistant professor at Millersville University, Millersville, PA. Her most recent exhibitions include: Photographic Visions, 19th Annual Juried Exhibition, Lancaster, PA (2001); Institutional Space, Sykes Gallery, Millersville University, Millersville, PA (2001); Buffalo 6, Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Buffalo State University, Buffalo, NY (1999); National Exhibition, Carnegie Art Center, Buffalo, NY (1998); The 47th Western New York Exhibition, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY (1998). In addition to several competition awards and research grants, Frischkorn has received three Individual Arts Fellowships from the Chautauqua Fund for the Arts, Jamestown, NY, and the Stein Fine Art Award at the 47th Western New York Exhibition, Buffalo, NY.

Third Floor Gallery
Mary McCabe Dudley: Oil Paintings.

After a 1986 trip to Calcutta and Manila, where she worked with malnourished and abandoned women and children, Mary McCabe Dudley began a series of small allegorical oil paintings titled "Rescue" that meditate on the excess of food and wealth in the face of hunger and poverty. These brightly colored, naively-painted still lifes depict dinner plates with fanciful combinations of miniature clothing, plants, and food. "Each selected food and object connects my environment to another’s and triggers a symbolic meaning for me," the artist writes.

Living in a suburban community in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Dudley uses her painting practice to address the inequities of social class in the U.S. as well as between over-abundance here in the U.S., in contrast to non-western neediness and relative scarcity. "Painting gives me a way to connect to people of different economic backgrounds and an emotional outlet for my concerns." Susan Lubowsky Talbott writes that "Dudley’s paintings are never maudlin or cloying. They approach the issues that plague America with a soft touch that in the end delves deep."

For a full essay by Susan Lubowsky Talbott, Director of the Des Moines Arts Center, Iowa click here

January 24 to May 5, 2002

Philadelphia Art Alliance Satellite Gallery
Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 W. Rittenhouse, Third Floor

Recent Drawings and Paintings by Steve Cope
Opening Reception: Rittenhouse Hotel, 210 W. Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor

Steve Cope's large-scale abstract paintings and drawings are grounded in the tensions between surface and volume on the two-dimensional picture plane. In most of his paintings and drawings, there is a forceful insertion of spherical forms within the flatter, unstructured elements of the composition. This attention to the physical framework of painting itself recalls the concerns of many of the New York School artists of the post-World War II era as well as the resurgence of abstract painting in the 1980s. Cope cites, as sources of inspiration, painters such as Ross Bleckner and Philip Taffe and their abstract investigations of structure and decoration in which a dynamic order is created underscoring the material properties of the painting itself.

Cope received his MFA from Boston University, Boston, MA. He currently teaches at St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA and has recently taught at The New York Studio of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, New York, NY. His recent solo exhibitions include: George Walters Gallery, Elmira College, Elmira, NY (2000); Z Gallery, New York, NY (1996); and Eclipse Gallery, Boston, MA (1992, 1991, and 1989). Group exhibitions include: Abstraction, Wallingford Art Center, Media, PA (2001); A Show of Hands, Manna Benefit Exhibition, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2001); High Impact, William and Mary College, Williamsburg, VA (2001); Carpecken/Scott Gallery, Wilmington, DE (2001); Painting Abstraction, New York Studio School, New York, NY (2000); Postmasters, New York, NY (1999); Alan Gallery, Berea, OH (1998); and Delaware Museum of Art, Wilmington, DE (1997).

November 29, 2001 to March 3, 2002

DATES EXTENDED!
Second and Third Floor Galleries:
Weegee's Story: From the Berinson Collection
Sponsored by The Honickman Foundation

Weegee (Arthur Fellig)
In the Paddy Wagon, January 27, 1942
silver gelatin photograph
12.9 x 17.7 cm
© Weegee (Arthur Fellig)
Reproduced by permission
of the International Center
of Photography and Getty Images

The Philadelphia Art Alliance presents 227 small-scale black-and-white vintage photographs by the famous photographer Weegee (Arthur Fellig; 1899-1968), taken primarily in New York City from 1935 to 1945. Weegee’s photographs are famous for their depictions of street life in the Lower East Side, Brooklyn, Harlem, and Coney Island, but also have been recognized by scholars for their impact upon and likeness to film noir conventions, particularly their bold compositions, tight framing, and dramatic lighting effects which were achieved during darkroom experimentation. Weegee’s composite "portrait" of Manhattan documents an era and stands as an examplar of avant-garde photography.

This exhibition was organized by the Rupertinum Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Salzburg, Austria, and selected from one of the world’s premier private collection of Weegee photographs. A 128-page, illustrated catalogue, with essay by Virginia Heckert, is available for purchase through the Philadelphia Art Alliance ($25, plus postage).

Weegee's Story has been presented at: The Rupertinum, Salzburg, Austria; The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England; Magasin 3 Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden; Photographische Sammlung, Cologne, Germany; the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; and the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA.

Opening Reception: Friday, November 30, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

SPECIAL EVENT
Saturday, December 1, 10:30 - 12:30

Mini-symposium/panel discussion reassessing Weegee's contributions to the history of photography and photojournalism

Moderator: Stephen Perloff, editor, The Photo Review, Philadelphia

Dr. Margit Zuckriegl, curator and exhibition organizer, Rupertinum, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Salzburg, Austria

Dr. Virginia Heckert, curator of photography, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL and catalogue essayist

Max Kozloff, critic and photographer, New York, NY

Jim McMillan, news photographer, Philadelphia Daily News

1:30 to 3 p.m.: Premier Screening of "Walking with Weegee" Fifteen-minute "video memoir" by Suzanne and Hugh Johnston, independent filmmakers who knew and worked with Weegee from 1957 to 1962, and collectors of Weegee's "art photography"; followed by a discussion with the filmmakers.

Curator-led tours of the exhibition:
Thursdays, December 6, 13, 20; January 3, 10 at noon. Tour is free with $3 donation (students $1). Meet on second floor.

Docent-led tours of the exhibition:
Sundays at noon. Free with $3 donation (students $1). Meet on second floor.

Group tours available by appointment.

January 24 to March 3, 2002
First Floor Gallery B

Fourth Biennial New Arts Program International Video Festival

The New Arts Program Inc., a non-profit art service organization and museum located in Kutztown, PA, presents its 4th Biennial International Video Festival at the Philadelphia Art Eleven projects selected by this year's jurors--Ann Borin, Mary Lucier, and Ann-Sargent Wooster.--will be screened continuously during gallery hours.

The program is as follows
Grand Prize: Procession (18 min., 2000), and Confluence (14 min., 1999) by Van McElwee, St. Louis Missouri.

First Prize: Trans(e) Bleu, 22 min. 2000, by Emmanuel Avenel and Marie-France Giraudon, Montreal, Canada.

Second Prize: Vignettes, Falling For You, You Take My Breath Away, I'll Want You Forever, You Can Tell Me I Can Take It (10:22 min., 1997) by Fred Levy, Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts.

Other selections include: Jean Pierre (5:30 min., 2000) by Paul Kaup and Michael Ruben, Brooklyn, NY; The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors. . .Even (with apologies to Marcel) (2 min., 1999) by Dennis Summers, Royal Oak, MI; Shadow Box (5:30 min., 2000) by Pierre Yves Clouin, Paris, France; Fish Bowl (3:45 min., 1999) by Kiriko Shirobayashi, New York City and Japan; Restless Spirit, (5:10 min., 2000) by Gene Gort, Hartford Connecticut; K.I.L.L. (3:30 min., 1999) by Thorstein Fleisch, Bonn, Germany; Observer/Observed (22 min., 199) by Takahik Iimura, New York, NY and Tokyo, Japan.

The New Arts Program is funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, area businesses, foundations, memberships and individual contributions. An annotated program guide is available for purchase through the PAA.
Click here for more information.

January 24 to March 3, 2002
First Floor/Gallery A

Leslie Fry
Pollination
15 x 10 x 1"
Acrylic and gouache on cast paper
Photo: Burk Uzzle
2001

Leslie Fry: TransPlants
Special Open House: Thursday, February 21, 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. Leslie Fry will be present

Leslie Fry's most recent series of monoprints and cast paper bas-reliefs continue her exploration of hybrid forms derived from the human body and human artifacts, and vegetable and animal life. As with her sculptures, these works on paper dislodge the borders that separate reality from fantasy, making connections between the body, architecture, machines, flowers, vegetables, human organs, sea anemones, landscapes, rope, clouds, and other sources.

Fry states: "Part of the inspiration for the series of monoprints, Better Homes and Gardens, came from the exotic flora in Sarasota, where I recently moved from Vermont to teach at New College of Florida. Each week brought new blooms to pick from my neighborhood, which I laid over collaged imagery. Extreme pressure was used to imprint the live and fragile flowers into the fibers of the paper, which produced unpredictable results. This process reflected my experience as a native Northerner transplanted to the sub-tropics of Florida. Each monoprint is a visual history of my search for the meaning of heart and home."

Fry is currently Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at New College of Florida, in Sarasota. She received her MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Her work has been exhibited internationally since 1977, and she has received numerous grants and fellowships most recently a Florida State Individual Artist Fellowship in 2001. Among her commissions are Pomerleau Neighborhood Park, in Burlington, Vermont, which includes twenty cast concrete sculptures of sphinxes.

Stephen Talasnik
Observation Deck
18x16x18
basswood
2000

Stephen Talasnik
Fictional Engineering: Drawings and Sculpture
New sculptures and drawings by this Philadelphia-born and trained and New York-based artist. Maquettes for imaginary, invented machines and contraptions.

Catalogue available, with essay by Nancy Princenthal, published by The Cooper Union School for the Advancement of Science and Art, School of Engineering, available through the PAA. For more information on the artist's work, visit www.stephentalasnik.com.

John Atkin
Migrant Navigator
81.5x55cm
mixed media on
ceramic grog on paper

Scorched Earth: Recent Work by John Atkin
Recent series of collaged drawings of hybrid figure-machines by this British artist. Gallery B (First Floor). Lecture by the artist, TBA. Call for more information on date and time.
Exhibition supported in part by The British Council.

September 14 to November 11, 2001

All Galleries
Poetics of Clay:
An International Perspective

Poetics of Clay: An International Perspective, an exhibition of approximately 190 selected works by 117 artists drawn from numerous private and public collections (primarily from the greater Philadelphia area and Europe) is on view at the Philadelphia Art Alliance from September 14 to November 11, 2001. A public opening reception will be held on Friday, September 14 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Initiated by the Philadelphia Art Alliance and organized and selected by Helen W. Drutt English, Poetics of Clay surveys the diversity of style and range of ideas in the field of international ceramic art of the post-World War II period. The exhibition includes vessels, domestic ware, sculpture, and an architectural installation by artists from 17 countries. Selected works from the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland from January 25 to April 1, 2002.

Poetics of Clay celebrates the achievements of twentieth-century international artists whose freedom and expansion of expression, constant inquiry, and search for personal identity herald their art. The past 50 years in ceramic art have been an extraordinary period of experimentation and risk-taking by artists such as Robert Arneson, Wayne Higby, Ron Nagle, Ken Price, Rudolf Staffel, Peter Voulkos (USA), Gordon Baldwin, Hans Coper, Bernhard Leach, Dame Lucie Rie(Great Britain), Takaro Araki (Japan), Guido Geelen (The Netherlands), Gertraud Möhwald (Germany), among others. The movement in the ceramic world toward fusing with mainstream concepts in art is witnessed through non-functional works, as well as through the continuous commitment to function.

Poetics of Clay encompasses all three floors of the Philadelphia Art Alliance building. A complimentary brochure (including a curatorial statement and a list of artists in the exhibition) produced by the Art Alliance is available. A scholarly book surveying the field of international ceramic arts of the post-1945 period is in preparation and will be published by Thames and Hudson, London. Contributors include Arthur C. Danto, Wayne Higby, Homa Farjadi/Moshen Mostafavi, Wendy Steiner, Wayne Higby, and Helen W. Drutt English.

Major support for Poetics of Clay has been provided by: First Union National Bank; The William B. Dietrich Foundation, the Finnish Ministry of Education; and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. Supplemental funding is also provided by the Fels Fund and anonymous donors.

Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. A donation of $3 is requested for this special exhibition.

Lenders to "Poetics of Clay"
Arabia Museum, Helsinki, Finland
Helen and Jack Bershad
Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz
Gail M. and Bob Brown
The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
Helen and Leonard Evelev
Joseph Fafard
Lynn E. Farkas
Caroline and Roger Ford
Guido Geelen Diane and Marc Grainer
Sandy and Lou Grotta
Marge and Philip Kalodner
Jane and Leonard Korman
Vicente Lim and Robert Tooey The Makler Family
Regina and Marlin Miller
Dr. Charles W. Nichols
Robert L. Pfannebecker
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Tina Phipps and Barbara Rice
Kristina Riska
Lynne B. Sagalyn
Dr. Stanley H. Shapiro
Janet M. and Joseph D. Shein
Anna Smuckler
Lenore and Morton Weiss Arthur Joseph Williams
Dina and Jerry Wind
Paula Winokur

Robert Arneson,
Nasal Flat, 1981
glazed ceramic; 7' 3 3/8" H
Collection of Janet & Joseph Shein
USA © Estate of
Robert Arneson/Licensed
by VAGA, New York, NY
photo credit: Lee Fatherree

Biographical Sketches of Selected Artists

Robert Arneson (1930 - 1992, California, USA) featured work: "Nasal Flat," 1981 from the collection of Janet and Joseph Shein, Part of Arneson's bold, humorous Self-Portraits series,"Nasal Flat" is hand- built, glazed ceramic and 87 inches high. Arneson is considered the father of the Funk Art Movement. He is a central figure in the history of 20th century ceramics, particularly the ceramic sculpture movement of the West Coast.

Guido Geelen (b. 1961, Thorn , The Netherlands) featured work: "Untitled," 1988 from the collection of the artist "Untitled" is fired clay with a semi-transparent glaze and silver and mother-of- pearl luster. Geelen is known as a sculptor whose unorthodox use of ceramics has won him the Dr. A. H. Heineken prize for art and a solo exhibition at the Stedelisk, Amsterdam in 2000.

Guido Geelen,
Untitled (detail)
fired clay, semi-transparent glaze,
silver and mother-of-pearl luster
22-1/2 x 20-7/8 x 10-7/8 in.
Collection of the artist, The Netherlands
1988

Paula Winokur's featured work: "Chaco Memory," a porcelain piece created in 1990, comes from the collection of the artist and was exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1992. Over the past 15 years, Ms. Winokur's work has been influenced by the earth's natural anomalies, such as cliffs, ledges, crevices and canyons, and the effects of wind, earthquakes, and geological shifts. Ms. Winokur states, "I believe that my work is about memory...about places which exist and yet do not exist...a collection of places which I have (perhaps) seen." Ms. Drutt English selected Ms. Winokur's "Chaco Memory" to represent the work of one of Philadelphia's most talented ceramists. Ms. Winokur's inaugural exhibition was held in 1974 at Helen Drutt Gallery. Since then, Ms. Winokur has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships. Her work has been exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the American Craft Museum in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is in their permanent collections.

Gertraud Möhwald (b. 1929, Dresden, Germany) featured work: "Head with Hands," 1992 from a private collection This piece showcases Ms. Möhwald's technique of using shards of discarded ceramics to augment her faces and forms. This is a rare opportunity to view Ms. Möhwald's figurative works. Having lived most of her adult life in the former East Germany, only six of Ms. Möhwald's works exist in the USA.

Paula Winokur,
Chaco Memory
porcelain, 35'H x 13' 8"W
1990

Rudolf Staffel (b. 1911, Texas, USA) featured work: "Light Gatherer," ca. 1975-78 from the collection of Vicente Lim & Robert Tooey. Staffel is known for his abstraction of form and use of light. His "Light Gatherer" series is composed of translucent porcelain pieces. Staffel is the only American potter to be given a solo retrospective by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1997. Staffel has had two retrospectives in Europe. His work is in major collections throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Gertraud Möhwald,
Head with Hands
ceramic and paper; 17 x 20 in.
Private Collection
1992

Guest Curator:
Helen W. Drutt English is an internationally recognized authority in the field of contemporary craft based in Philadelphia. She is founder/director of Helen Drutt Gallery, located since 1973 in Philadelphia. Ms. Drutt English taught at Philadelphia College of Art from 1972 to 1982 and at Moore College of Art and Design from 1974 to 1987. In addition, she has taught at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu,Wellesley College, and Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Ms. Drutt English was executive director and a founding member of the Philadelphia Council of Professional Craftsmen from 1968 to 1973. She has worked as a curator and art consultant for the American Craft Museum, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, the Society for Art in Craft, New York/Pittsburgh, the U.S. State Department, the Pittsburgh Center for the Visual Arts, and director of the Moore College of Art and Design Gallery from 1978 to 1980.

Rudolf Staffel,
Light Gatherer, ca. 1975-78
translucent porcelain 8 1/2" high
Collection of Vicente Lim
& Robert Tooey, U.S.A.

Ms. Drutt English has received many awards, among them the Lifetime Achievement in the Crafts award from the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 1993, Fleisher Founder's Day Award from the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1994, an honorary doctorate of the arts from Moore College of Art and Design in 1990. In 1999, she was named a Visionary by the American Craft Museum. In 2001, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Curatorial Statement
"Poetics of Clay"
"It is the realm of submerged memory-traces that creative art moves"
Philip Rawson, Ceramics, 1971

Stephen DeStaebler,
Standing Woman with Open Heart
ceramic, hand built, 7' 2" high
Collection of The Contemporary
Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
1978

"Poetics of Clay" is concerned with the mnemonics of places and images. It is connected strongly to the art of memory as one moves through one's imagination, recalling the works observed during the past four decades and, like Sherlock Holmes, searching for their current places of residence. A Sunday morning in solitude with a cup of coffee brought to mind Arneson's "All-American Trophy" of 1967. A subsequent telephone call discovered it exactly in its original place over thirty years later, residing in a Louis Kahn house, in which the owners had created their own world within our world. This sense of place and discovery of work was repeated frequently during the past months.

The genesis of this exhibition occurred almost two years ago, in response to a text-in-progress (originally conceived to be co-authored with Peter Dormer shortly before his death in 1996). The publication was intended to explore the history of ideas within the ceramic movement in the post-World War II period. In 1999, the Philadelphia Art Alliance agreed to mount an exhibition of works central to the field and to support a text to be published by Thames & Hudson, London. Major funding was secured during the winter of 2001 from The William B. Dietrich Foundation, First Union National Bank, and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. The Finnish Ministry of Education generously sponsored the loans from Finland. Consequently, commitments to contribute essays to a publication now in preparation were supported by Arthur C. Danto, Wendy Steiner, Homa Farjadi/Moshen Mostafavi, and Wayne Higby, which will provide an unique examination of ideas within ceramic history.

Works were largely drawn from private and public collections throughout the greater Philadelphia area and, in selected cases, New York, Maryland, Canada, Finland, The Netherlands, Spain, and Germany. The inclusion of selected works from Japan and a piece by Beatrice Wood were made possible by curators Felice Fisher, Darrel Sewell, and Amanda Clifford at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Marianne Aav, chief curator of the Museum of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland, facilitated the loans of works by Rut Bryk and Birger Kaipiainen, which were drawn from private collections and the Arabia Museum, Helsinki.

In addition, the decision on the part of the Museum of Art and Design in Helsinki to bring selected works from "Poetics of Clay" to Finland during the winter of 2002 will expand the exhibition supported by the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Yvònne G. J. M. Joris, director of the Museum Het Kruithuis in 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, assisted in the negotiation of the private loans from Guido Geelen and, in the final hours, made possible the loans of works by Ken Price and Ron Nagle. The Clay Studio's exhibition "Contemporary Eastern European Ceramics," organized by Jimmy Clark in 1992, assisted in locating works from Latvia, Russia, Hungary, and Poland in Philadelphia’s private collections and The Clay Studio's permanent collection. James Jensen, chief curator of The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, permitted the Stephen De Staebler sculpture to reside in Philadelphia for one year after its acquisition. A special thank you to Renate Wunderle, director of Galerie B-15, Munich, for expediting the work of Claudi Casanovas.

The generosity of private collectors made this exhibition possible. From the very beginning, the support of Helen and Jack Bershad, Vicente Lim and Robert Tooey, Regina and Marlin Miller, and Robert L. Pfannebecker granted access to the hidden treasures in their private domains. As the project developed, support sprang forth enthusiastically from Linda Lee Alter, Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, Gail M. and Bob Brown, Helen and Leonard Evelev, Lynn E. Farkas, Caroline and Roger Ford, Diane and Marc Grainer, Sandy and Lou Grotta, Marge and Philip Kalodner, Jane and Leonard Korman, Hope and Paul Makler, Dr. Charles W. Nichols, Tina Phipps and Barbara Rice, Lynne B. Sagalyn, Rosa and Gilberto Sandretto, Dr. Stanley H. Shapiro, Janet and Joseph Shein, Anna Smuckler, Lenore and Morton Weiss, Arthur Joseph Williams, Dina and Jerry Wind, six anonymous lenders, and most importantly, from the artists themselves, without whom there would be no exhibition. In addition, participants Joseph Fafard, Guido Geelen, Kristina Riska, and Paula Winokur extended loans from their personal collections.

No exhibition can occur without the assistance of a community. My deepest gratitude goes to Carole Price Shanis and James McClelland for their continued belief and support of this project. A special thank you to Dr. Amy Ingrid Schlegel and the entire staff at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, especially to Melissa Caldwell and Matthew Pruden, for their generous and supportive spirit throughout the trials and tribulations associated with this exhibition. Christiane Gruber, research assistant, whose initial involvement was made possible by a grant from the Fels Fund in the summer of 2000, has been diligent in all aspects of research related to this project. Thanks also to Homa Farjadi for her magnanimous spirit as a design consultant to the exhibition, to Martha Flood, keeper of my archives, and to Hurong Lou, my assistant, for making possible the impossible.

The exhibition is in no way intended to be a complete survey of ceramic art during the post-World War II period, since the works of many artists central to the development could not be accessed. Rather, it serves as an entrance into the ideas of three generations of artists and their work from the last five decades. The text in preparation will serve as a more expansive exploration through essays, a chronology of ceramic events, biographies, and a broad bibliography.

The selection of works was in part dictated by considerations imposed by the physical properties of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, a former residential mansion whose space now embraces exhibitions of contemporary art, among various cultural activities. The original concept to arrange the exhibition historically or stylistically was abandoned, and the decision to accommodate the works according to size and weight, bound together by aesthetic judgement, mandated the final result. Works included exhibit a diversity of styles and range of ideas inherent to the history of modern and contemporary ceramics from 1950 to the present.

From functional objects, the exhibition moves through a period paralleling abstract concepts and Funk attitudes which dramatically change the utilitarian form as the sense of use is dissolved by alternative issues of creative expression. Narrative and figurative sculpture is enlarged, commanding attention not unlike that given to architectural installations. The movement within the ceramic world toward fusing with mainstream concepts in art is witnessed through a diversity of style and range of ideas which include sculpture and architectural installation, as well as through a continuous commitment to function. The vessel is explored as a functional object, as landscape, as sculpture, as a metaphor for previous utilitarian concerns, as a mystical container which holds only light, or as a decorative element whose purpose is no different than any other great work of art.

"Poetics of Clay" celebrates the achievements of twentieth century artists whose freedom and expansion of expression, constant inquiry, and search for personal identity herald their art. The past 50 years have been an extraordinary period of experimentation and risks. Though definitions in the field have changed, these works illustrate that custom, tradition, and routine have not lulled contemporary artists committed to the world of clay. In modern and contemporary ceramic art, tradition joins mainstream concerns, while distinctions separating the arts have begun to dissolve. In a recent keynote speech at the Royal Academy of Arts in London Tom Stoppard stated that "The term 'artist' isn't intelligible to me if it doesn't entail making. . . Thinking Is Not Enough . . . from Praxiteles to Pollock, the artist was somebody who made something, the thought varies in its profundity. The rest, the making, is, or was, the hard part." The survival of the hand as a creative symbol within a mechanized society supports the act of creation and making in the exhibition "Poetics of Clay."

Digital Deluxe

Philadelphia PA. The Philadelphia Art Alliance presents Digital Deluxe, a sampling of contemporary art-sculpture, photography, drawing, video, film, printmaking, installation, and soundthat has been either enhanced with and produced by digital technologies. Participating artists include: Taryn FitzGerald; Judy Gelles; Richard Harrod; Colin Ives; Aaron Levy and Andrew Zitcer; Aaron Levy and Diana Prescott; Jonathan Lewis; Nancy Lewis; Kathy Marmor; Annu P. Matthew; Nancy Miller; Elieen Neff; and Teri Rueb.

A sampling of digital art practices by east coast artists-

First Floor: June 7 to September 2
Second Floor: June 7 to July 29

Computers have irrevocably altered our way of interacting with the world -- our way of seeing -- sometimes so surreptitiously that we do not realize the extent to which computers have permeated our daily lives. It is now a cliché to say that we live in a visual culture, one made possible by the proliferation of digital technologies. The creation and manipulation of images by digital means can now be achieved with an astonishing array of software programs, hardware platforms, scanners, printing techniques, and printers. For many artists these "tools" have supplanted the paintbrush, the chisel, even the camera. Their impact on more commercial sectors of the Culture Industry has been even greater. The computer is indeed a tool of transformation, not just for artists, but for a majority of us in this undeniably digital society.

DIGITAL DELUXE samples a range of different approaches to digital art practices by fourteen artists from Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Providence. Sometimes also referred to by the umbrella term "new media," the works in this exhibition have been either entirely created with or enhanced by the use of a computer, and, in several cases, take the computer itself — or technology more broadly speaking — as subject. The word "practice" should be stressed, as most of the works in this exhibition are not precious, unique objects — collector’s items -- but ephemeral, technology-dependent, and infinitely reproducible (at least in theory). The very appearance of digital art is continually changing as technological refinements and innovations drive changes in new media practices.

As you will discover in several works in the Second-Floor Galleries, sound is a major component of this exhibition. Ambient music, recorded "natural" sound, manipulated sound, noise, and voice augments, completes, and in one case, substitutes for the visual image. Interactivity is also an important principle for certain artists in this exhibition who do not produce traditional objects for contemplation but rather affect an aesthetic experience precisely through the deliberate engagement of the viewer/visitor and the work of art. Others artists create installations, some involving projections, that act as environments for contemplation and de-emphasize object-orientation.

DIGITAL DELUXE offers a continuum of contemporary art — from low-tech drawing to high-tech sound installation — that has been affected, and effected, by digital technologies. How the "digital revolution" — now over thirty years old -- has influenced recent art practice is the broader subject of this exhibition. Like it or hate it: quality is not so much the issue. Rather, the works in this exhibition, like all "good art," elicit wonder, enchantment, contemplation, and laughter, through technological means of deliberately varying levels of sophistication.

Amy Ingrid Schlegel, curator
Philadelphia Art Alliance

Annu Palakunnathu Matthew

Annu Matthew
Mrityudand

Annu Palakunnathu Matthew focuses on how commercial films in her homeland of India reflect and reinforce stereotyped gender roles in Indian culture. "Bollywood" refers to the name given to the largest film industry in the world, concentrated in Bombay. Images from real cinema posters are combined and altered to create works that, in the artist’s words, "explore issues such as the position of women in Indian society, the dowry system, arranged marriages, discrimination based on skin color, the stigma of pre-marital relationships and inter-racial relationships." Matthew uses a software program that allows her to create unusually large images that mimic the size of movie posters.

Nancy Miller
Gush and Bore

Matthew received her MFA in photography from the University of Delaware in 1997 and is currently assistant professor of art at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI. She has been awarded residencies, grants, and fellowships, from: Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (2000); Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (2001); Visual Studies Workshop; New York State Council for the Arts (2000); and University of Rhode Island (1999); among others. Matthew’s work has been published in Exposure, LensWork, Nueva Luz, Photographers International, Photo Metro and The Photo Review.

Nancy Miller

Nancy Miller’s computer-generated digital prints could be characterized as satirical pastiches of a broad range of subjects: iconography from art history, imagery from popular culture and advertising, and portraits of political leaders and American celebrities. Using Photoshop software, Miller prints her images in a horizontal format, echoing the fantastic panoramic landscapes framed by architectural facades she depicts in her prints. Works such as "Gush and Bore or Chaos in Florida," or "The American Couch Potato" comment wryly upon recent political events and American social mores.

Miller, who lives in New York City, studied art at Bennet College and the Maryland Institute College of Art, completing her studies in 1949. Formerly a painter, Miller became known for her Plexiglas and paper sculptures in the 1970s and 1980s. Ten years ago, Miller turned to digital production. She has exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe since 1965 and is included in over a thousand public and private collections around the world.

Taryn FitzGerald
Under My Skin
still

Taryn FitzGerald

Taryn FitzGerald’s short videos explore the nature of repression and its connection to compulsive behavior in the psyche. Over the Rainbow (2001; 11 min.) is considered by Fitzgerald to be the foundation for all three of the videos in this exhibition. Based on the film The Wizard of Oz, the film explores personal perception and as the artist describes "the place of the imagination in creating reality". In the video In Your Quiet Little Way (1996; 10 min.) FitzGerald evokes the metaphor of the empty home to explore memories from her childhood of powerlessness, alienation, and confinement. Body image, perception, and self-destruction are the underlying issues in Under My Skin (1999, 7:15 min.) as FitzGerald explores her own struggle with a long-time eating disorder. Each video is shot in 8mm formats and then digitized from analog to allow FitzGerald to edit and manipulate the imagery through various computer programs.

Judy Gelles
Invented Landscape

FitzGerald, who lives in Brooklyn, NY, studied at the L’Ecole Supérieure d’Art Visuel in Geneva, Switzerland and received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. A few of her recent awards include: Best Experimental Work, US Super 8/ 8 mm Film & Video Festival (2000); Winner, 6th National Showcase Exhibition, The Alternative Museum, New York, NY; and the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY (1996). FitzGerald currently teaches at Future Media Concepts, New York, NY.

Judy Gelles

Judy Gelles combines ideas of place and memory in her series of digital photographs called Invented Landscapes. Digitally manipulated photographs of the disparate landscapes of the Maine woods and the Atlantic coast of Florida are layered inside intimately-sized lightboxes. Gelles illustrates how memories of her family’s seasonal homes of Maine and Florida have fused into one narrative over the course of time and distance.

Gelles received her MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and currently teaches at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and the International Center of Photography, New York, NY. Gelles was recently awarded an Artists as Catalyst Mid-Atlantic Foundation Grant, (2001), the Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts (2000), and the Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity Award, Philadelphia (1999), among many others.

Richard Harrod
Slapartment

Richard Harrod

Richard Harrod investigates how both environment and technology have evolved to the point of becoming what he calls a "solipsistic prison." In the projected digital video-loop, Slapartment, the "character" of a yellow square incessantly scans a run-down room of an apartment for signs of habitation. A fragment of the sound track to The Night of the Living Dead offers an ominous backdrop to the square’s obsessive swirling search of the room. B-Motion, an interactive computer database and live website, is a work in progress that addresses the same principle of self and environment imprisoned by technology. Viewers are asked to enter into the database their coordinates within the city of Philadelphia during different times of the day. Each participant is represented by a small red dot on the computer screen. The data represents the movements of the participants which take on a discernable pattern on the computer screen. Viewers are made aware of their own presence within the larger context of the city. As Harrod states, B Motion ultimately illustrates how "our mission, our drama, our awareness of the self in a larger environment can only backfire."

Harrod received his M.F.A. in sculpture from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia. He was the director in 1999-2000 of Blohard Gallery, Philadelphia and co-curated Mental Wilderness at the Gale Gates Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2000). Harrod was awarded the Mildred Boucher Award (1999), a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Philadelphia (1997), and the Presidential Prize at Beaver College, Glenside, PA (1996). Harrod lives in Queens, NY.
Please visit Harrod's website, B Motion, at www.kingbig.org/bmotion

Colin Ives

In For a Man with a Hammer, Colin Ives examines the ways in which the dichotomy of mind and body has manifested itself in the digital age. A small video screen displaying an animated image is located behind a viewfinder lens placed within the head of an oversized hammer. The hammer sculpture stands upright in a bucket full of wax nails. Sounds of hammering and heartbeats emanate from the base of the pedestal like ghostly echoes. The sounds and the unusable wax nails refer to the tool’s previous use. In transforming the hammer from a tool symbolizing physical labor into an artifact of history, Ives observes that "these antiquarian tools, which once occupied us, have become a kind of phantom limb: we carry with us the heft, the trace, and shape of an appendage that is no longer there."

Ives received his MFA in multimedia and video art from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and is currently an assistant professor of Imaging and Digital Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD. His digital installations and web projects have appeared in a number of venues, including: For the Birds, Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA (2001); Biennial 2000, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington DE; Artscape 2000 minus 1, Festival site at Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (1999); andTool as Art: The Hechinger Collection, The National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. (1999).

Aaron Levy &
Andrew Zitcer
.aural.2
full view

Keyboard view

Aaron Levy and Andrew Zitcer

Aaron Levy and Andrew Zitcer conceived of the sound installation ".aural", which uses the voice of avant-garde composer and performer John Cage as the basis for sound files stored on two computer hard drives. Levy and Zitcer created bar codes that, when scanned by the visitor/viewer, activate a total of 130 different, manipulated sound files excerpted from a CD of Cage reading from his journals. The first installation of this project took place at the Kelly Writer’s House at the University of Pennsylvania. In the Art Alliance's installation, ".aural.2," the bar codes are placed above the keyboard of a piano in the position of sheet music, allowing visitors two possible levels of interaction. Two scanners allow different sound files to play simultaneously, creating a sound environment. As the sound files are activated by the visitor, a randomly selected passage of Cage speaking is also activated on nearby computer screens, which flow at the speed and cadence of the active sound file.

Aaron Levy and Diana Prescott

Aaron Levy collaborated with Diana Prescott on three short digital films, caul. causal. stall, presented on a television monitor. Resembling the graininess of super 8 film, short outtakes of everyday activities in two of the films, one of traffic on a highway, the other of a dog chasing its tail, are subtly manipulated and repeated for the duration of the film. The accompanying sound tracks are composed from recorded and edited language. In the third film, .stall, a tiny digital camera records a few seconds of a dye-injected heart pumping filmed from outside the body; this footage was transferred to CD-ROM, given to the patient and then edited by the artists. An accompanying sound track of a heart beat overlaid with digitally manipulated sounds, one of which resembles an EKG monitor of a "flatline," underscores the disjuncture between image and language.

Aaron Levy is a Philadelphia-based artist and the founding curator of SLOUGHT Networks (http://slought.net). SLOUGHT is comprised of a series of local and web-based arts initiatives. These include lecture series, curated events, publications, and concerts. Recently, Levy was 1999-2000 Resident Junior Fellow at the Kelly Writer’s House, University of Pennsylvania. Levy's work spans photography, prose poetry, and the digital arts. Recent exhibitions include "sad gratitude" (Schaffner Gallery, New York), "artsEdge" (Faculty Architecture Exhibit, University of Pennsylvania), and "First Blood" (Ericson Gallery, Philadelphia, June 2001).

Andrew Zitcer is an artist and community arts activist based in West Philadelphia. His work combines a background in music and poetry with an interest in emerging techniques in digital audio. Zitcer is a founder and director of the Foundation Community Arts Initiative, a collaborative arts program and performance series. Zitcer was the 2000-2001 Junior Fellow at the Kelly Writer's House, University of Pennsylvania.

Diana Prescott is the lead singer/bassist for Philadelphia-based band Eltro. Eltro received their first critical acclaim with the 1998 release of their album Information Changer on Philadelphia’s Miner Street label,. In 2001, Absolutely Kosher Records oversaw the release of Eltro's second LP, Velodrome. Diana received a MFA in painting from the Moore College of Art and Design. Her current work encompasses video art and experimental sound.

Jonathan Lewis
Chocolate Lime

Jonathan Lewis

Jonathan Lewis presents two series of prints based on the digital manipulation of found objects. In See Candy, Lewis photographs and digitally scans various types of candy wrappers. The colors are pulled from the original scan and pushed into various bands stretched to the point of complete abstraction. Postcards of famous paintings are the basis for a second series of prints called Heavenly Bodies. A small pixelated-portion of the scanned image is enlarged to encompass the entire area of the final Iris print. Each series follows a process of moving from figuration to abstraction, reaching what Lewis considers to be the "atomic essence" of the visual image.

Jonathan Lewis
Mentos

Lewis, who lives in Philadelphia, received his BA in Art History at Robinson College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England and a certificate in Professional Photographic Practice at the London College of Printing. He was recently chosen to exhibit in the 2001 Challenge Exhibition at Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, and has exhibited in New Prints 2001 at the International Print Center, New York, NY. Lewis is currently the Iris printmaker at the Silicon Gallery, Philadelphia.

Nancy Lewis
Toxic Pink

Nancy Lewis

Nancy Lewis’s computer drawings from her series called "the tattoo studies" are based on a personal language of symbols such as diamonds, flames, animals, and rainbows. Lewis uses the same approach in her digital works as in her paintings. She attempts to maintain a "hand-drawn" look through rough, bit-mapped edges and unmodulated colors simply drawn with a mouse in Appleworks software. Lewis considers these drawings to be designs for a line of temporary tattoos she would like to market someday.

Lewis received her BA from San Francisco State University and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She is the recipient of a Window of Opportunity Award from the Leeway Foundation, Philadelphia (1999) and a Visual Arts Fellowship for Painting from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (2000). Lewis is currently a member of Vox Populi and lives in Philadelphia.

Kathy Marmor
Dynamics of Forgetting:
Screen Memories

Kathy Marmor

Kathy Marmor investigates the correlation between the body, language, and the computer screen in one of a series of projects called "The Dynamics of Forgetting." Digitally manipulated images of the artist’s body are overlaid with "screen shots" from the computer to examine how the computer screen behaves like language and the unconscious. Marmor attempts to recreate Lacan’s Objet petit (the object of desire), She explores how the image-as-screen conceals the ways in which language constructs the female body as fetish object. Digitally enhanced images taken from video stills and screen shots are sandwiched in Plexiglas plates and suspended throughout the gallery. Other images of the fragmented body are projected onto those suspended Plexiglas plates and reflect on the gallery walls to create a total environment.

Kathy Marmor
Dynamics of Forgetting:
Screen Memories
detail

Marmor received her MFA in Imaging and Digital Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD and is currently assistant professor of art at the University of Vermont, Burlington, VT. In 1999, Marmor received a research grant from the University of Vermont. During the summer Marmor lives in Baltimore.

Eileen Neff

In Figure/Ground, Eileen Neff manipulates her photographs digitally to blur the distinctions between interior and exterior. Using Photoshop, Neff layers photographs of a single cloud and interior with multiple doorways, confounding viewers’ expectations of the objectivity of the photographic image. The title Figure/Ground playfully suggests that the cloud, normally an intangible object, in its vertical orientation is "figure" and in its horizontal orientation is "ground." Figure/Ground is related to a recent series by Neff that explores the distinctions of stillness/motion, the perceptible/ intangible, and interior/exterior to question our conventional associations of objects and the "truth value" of photography itself.

Eileen Neff
Figure/Ground

Neff received her MFA in photography from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia. She has received numerous fellowships and awards from: The Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia (2000); The Leeway Foundation (1996); Pew Fellowship in the Arts (1993-94); Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (1992); La Napoule Art Foundation, Napoule, France (1991); and National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C. (1988-1990). Neff currently teaches painting and media arts at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and divides her time between Philadelphia and New York City.

Teri Rueb
Cairns
installation view

Teri Rueb

In her digital sculptures, Teri Rueb references the technical structure of the computer as a translation device from binary code to narratives used by the average person. In Cairn, three sets of stacked glass sheets serve as a metaphor for the strata of the computer. In each Cairn Rueb clarifies the otherwise opaque functions of the computer, from binary code ("on" and "off"), to programming languages and compilers, to natural language and text as seen on the screen. Sound samples from nature are activated by the movement of the viewer around one Cairn, underscoring the ability of the computer to respond to and translate our motions. Each sculpture also metaphorically represents a cairn, a man-made stone structure found in nature and used as both a trail marker and a pagan funerary memorial. As Reub states, the Cairn series "reflects on the human inclination to seek our own image in the machine."

Rueb received a MA in interactive telecommunications from the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University and is assistant professor of imaging, digital art, and experimental interfaces at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD. In additional to national and international group exhibitions, Rueb has produced several large-scale site-specific installations including: TRACE: an environmental sound installation, with the support of The Banff Centre for the Arts at Yoho National Park, Alberta, Canada (1999); and OPEN CITY: public space and civic identity, for the Commission for Site-Projects DC, Washington, D.C. (1999). Rueb has been most active as a lecturer at conferences and symposia on sound and art in Germany and England.

Stephanie Knopp
Zebra Dreams

Stephanie Knopp, "Menagerie"

Stephanie Knopp received her MFA in graphic design from Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA and currently is the principal owner of Stepahnie Knopp Designs in Philadelphia. She is also a professor of Graphic Design at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia.

Knopp's recent exhibitions include: Art for Artist's Sake, Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Philadelphia (2000); University and College Designers, Minneapolis, MN (1995); Art Directors Club of Philadelphia (1994); Union of Artists and Writers of Cuba, Havana, Cuba (1988); and 11th Annual Poster Biennale, Warsaw, Poland (1986), among other venues. Knopp describes Menagerie, her photographic series of miniature golf courses on view at the PAA:

"The miniature golf course series began years ago with annual visits to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. There are dozens of 'goofy golf' parks there, one more ridiculous and spectacular than the next. Completely random in their themes, they pepper the landscape with fantastic creatures and bizarre architecture. After the first roll I exposed, I knew they were a perfect fit with the quirky qualities of the Diana camera.
"I was introduced to the Diana camera in graduate school and it was love at first sight. My infatuation with this tiny, shoddily made plastic toy has continued unabated ever since. Diana cameras are notoriously temperamental, however. Chromatic aberrations, uneven focus, and other optical distortions are common. Despite this, Dianas have special qualities that offset their many faults. I love the directness and utter simplicity of the process. With practically no settings to adjust or technology to master, the Diana is nearly pure photography; one almost feels that the eye and camera are one entity."

First-Floor Galleries
Artistic Alternatives:
Works by Keith Haring, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol

Artistic Alternatives celebrates the contributions made by five outstanding artists living in the United States active over the past fifty years: Keith Haring (b. Kutztown, PA 1958-1990); David Hockney (b. Bradford, England, 1937); Jasper Johns (b. Augusta, GA, 1930); Robert Rauschenberg (b. Port Arthur, TX, 1925); and Andy Warhol (b. Pittsburgh, PA, 1928-1987). This exhibition is sponsored by PrideFest America, the nation's largest annual gay and lesbian symposium and festival, held in Philadelphia from April 30 to May 6, 2001, with a grant from The Ethel and Jack Sandman Charitable Trust, and was organized by the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

The Philadelphia Art Alliance wishes to gratefully recognize and thank the lenders to this exhibition: Robert Morrison, for loaning works by Warhol and Johns as well as editing the videotape on view here; Karen DeLong, with the assistance of the Allentown Art Museum, and the entire Haring family; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, in particular John Ittmann, curator of prints; Lafayette College and Michiko Okaya, director of its art properties and gallery; Paul Cornwall-Jones of Petersburg Press (New York and London), for generously loaning and framing prints by Hockney and Johns; and James Caroll of the New Arts Program in Kutztown, PA, for the original video footage used in "Haring Drawing," on view here. We would also like to thank Robert Morrison, Michael Petronko, and Katharine Umsted for their assistance in the development of this exhibition.

Dr. Amy Ingrid Schlegel, curator, Philadelphia Art Alliance

Keith Haring

Keith Haring was born in 1958 in Kutztown, PA. He attended art school in Pittsburgh, PA and exhibited several abstract drawings at his first solo exhibition in 1978. In 1979, he moved to New York City and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts. In 1980, he created his first drawings of flying saucers, animals, and other human imagery and by 1981 he was drawing with chalk on black paper in the subway. Haring's signature vocabulary of the child, barking dog, flying saucer, halo, cross, pyramid, and heart eventually commingled with sexually explicit imagery in the 1980s.

By 1984 Haring had taken his Pop and Graffiti Art-inspired work from its origins in the New York subway to the upper echelons of the art world. He was invited to exhibit at: Documenta 7, Kassel (1982), The Whitney Biennial (1983), Bienal de Sao Paulo (1983), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux (1985), the Paris Biennale (1985), and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1986), to name just a few prestigious institutions that embraced his work with both solo and group exhibitions.

Throughout his career, Haring was dedicated to public art. He created his first mural on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as well as others in Chicago, Sydney, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, Dobbs Ferry, Minneapolis, Amsterdam, Paris, Pisa, and the Berlin Wall. In the late 1980s Haring led art workshops for children and collaborated with them on the creation of several murals worldwide. In 1985, Haring began to paint monstrous and apocalyptic imagery as well as sexually explicit, sometimes homoerotic, subjects and exhibited them at both the Tony Schafrazi and Leo Castelli Galleries in New York. In 1986, he opened the first "Pop Shop," which featured multiples of his paintings and other merchandise in New York. After he was diagnosed with AIDS, Haring joined the campaign for AIDS awareness in 1989 and established the Keith Haring

Foundation, a charitable organization devoted to various social causes. He continued to devote his time and energy to social causes, ranging from AIDS awareness to drug abuse in the inner cities. When Haring died of AIDS-related causes in 1990 he was internationally renowned for his use of schematic images of babies, dogs, and human figures, the staples of his visually complex and powerfully direct murals, paintings, sculptures, and digital works. A video of Keith Haring drawing from 1982 at the New Arts Program in Kutztown, PA has been produced especially for this exhibition.

KEITH HARING, Untitled (Andy Mouse), 1985
Keith Haring made his first drawing including Mickey Mouse in 1981, early in his career. He and Andy Warhol met in 1983 and became fast friends. This 1985 untitled work offers a playful portrait of Pop artist Andy Warhol wearing Mickey Mouse ears and his trademark oversized glasses. Rendered schematically in thick bright pink and white lines on a neutral gray flat field of color, this painting combines two icons of American popular culture in a bold and simplified personal ode to Haring's friendship with Warhol.

KEITH HARING, Untitled (Free South Africa), 1984
This untitled drawing in black and red marker on white paper by Keith Haring was so widely reproduced in the mid-1980s that it became one of his best known images. The signature Haring figures, boldly rendered with a thick line that suggests a simultaneously flat and a volumetric form, are coded simply by color and scale to indicate racial difference and the inequity of the Apartheid system political and social domination in South Africa at the time. Although the black figure is much larger, it is enchained by the smaller white figure. Haring achieved an incredible visual directness in the delivery of his message. With the addition of the words "Free South Africa," the text that accompanied some of the later reproductions of this image, this drawing became an anti-apartheid icon. As the debate heated up in American universities to divest their financial holdings from multinational companies doing business in South Africa, this drawing by Keith Haring simply stated in visual terms the ethical racial injustice underpinning Apartheid.

David Hockney

Born in 1937 in Bradford, England into a politically radical working-class family, David Hockney studied at the Bradford School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. At the Royal College in the early 1960s, Hockney banded with a handful of other artists in their early 20s to form what art critic Lawrence Alloway called "the third phase of [British] Pop Art."

In 1961 Hockney and his cohorts participated in the important juried exhibition "Young Contemporaries" in London. Hockney recalled that: "For a student, the exhibition was a big event. That's when I began to sell my pictures. It was probably the first time there'd been a student movement in painting that was uninfluenced by older artists in [England] . . . this generation was not [influenced by American Abstract Expressionism]."

Alloway, one of the jurors, characterized the "Young Contemporaries" work as: "connect[ed] with the city. . . by using typical products and objets, including the techniques of graffiti and the imagery of mass communications. . . The impact of popular art is present, but checked by puzzles and paradoxes . . . their work . . . combines real objects, same-size representation, sketchy notation, and writing." Indeed Hockney's work of the 1960s and 1970s combines handwritten, graffiti-like text and a seemingly quickly rendered, naïve, sketchy figurative drawing style, in both his paintings and prints. Alloway described Hockney's approach as an overlay of children's art, primitive painting, and graffiti. Art critic Arthur Danto sees Hockney's work of the early 1960s as "about love -- erotic and indeed homoerotic love rather than the abstract . . . but [it is] unashamedly literary as well."

By 1964 David Hockney had settled in Hollywood, where he has lived ever since, with the exception of two years in Paris (1973 to 1975). Once in Los Angeles, Hockney's painting style changed dramatically, taking on a weightier, more traditionally representational manner. Portraits of friends and lovers, domestic scenes of couples (gay and straight), the outdoor swimming pool, and bathing emerged as some of his favorite subjects from the mid-1960s through the 1970s.

During the 1980s, Hockey experimented intensely with photography, creating photographic collages (Ian Washing His Hair, London [1983] is included here) and prints of previous work reproduced on the photocopier machine.

DAVID HOCKNEY, Kaisarion With All His Beauty, 1961
In 1961, while a student at the Royal College in London, David Hockney turned to graphic work because he could not afford painting materials. Some of his earliest etchings are included in this exhibition: this 1961 color etching called Kaisarion with All His Beauty comes from the series "Me and My Heroes" and is based on the poetry of the openly gay ancient Greek Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy. Hockney had been interested in Cavafy's poetry for quite a while and remembers, even while still living with his parents in the working class northern English city of Bradford, that Cavafy's poems were not available in the open stacks at his local public library but that he had to request it, which was one way of controlling who the readers of the homoerotic poetry were. Hockney recalls that he liked the book so much he stole it from his local library and still has it in his personal collection.

While still a student at the Royal College, Hockney received the Guinness Award for Etching. Kaisarion With All His Beauty is an exemplary etching made while a student. Its formal and conceptual complexity demonstrates why he won this prestigious award. Kaisarion is also exemplary of Hockney's paintings and prints of the 1960s and 1970s in that it combines handwritten, graffiti-like text and a seemingly quickly rendered, naïve, sketchy figurative drawing style. Indeed the British art critic Lawrence Alloway was one of the first to single out Hockney and a handful of other young British artists in the early 1960s as "the third phase of [British] Pop Art." Alloway described Hockney's approach as an overlay of children's art, primitive painting, and graffiti.

DAVID HOCKNEY, Two Boys Aged 22 and 23, 1966
Hockney's interest in the explicitly homoerotic poetry of the ancient Greek Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy was one of several literary sources that inspired his prints during the 1960s. In addition to Kaisarion with All His Beauty, Hockney created 13 etchings to accompany a 1966 livre d'artist translation of Cavafy's poems, oneo f which is Two Boys Aged 22 and 23. To prepare himself for this project, Hockney visited Beirut in early 1966, as he recalled, "just to get atmosphere and drawings for the prints . . . I thought Beirut was more like Alexandria would have been when Cavafy was there, cosmopolitan, different groups of people, French and Arabic. . ."

Art critic Arthur Danto views David Hockney's work of the early 1960s as "about love -- erotic and indeed homoerotic love rather than the abstract . . . but [it is] unashamedly literary as well." That description aptly fits Two Boys Aged 22 and 23. It is clearly an image of homosexual romance, and yet is subtle and tender rather than explicitly sexual and graphic. As an openly gay man, homosexual love has been important element of Hockney's usually personal and autobiographical subject matter.

DAVID HOCKNEY, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, 1965
In 1963 David Hockney traveled for the first time from England to Los Angeles, where he met Andy Warhol and curator Henry Geldzahler of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who became a close friend. By 1964 Hockney had settled in Los Angeles, where he has lived ever since, with the exception of two years in Paris. Once he expatriated himself to California, Hockney's painting style changed dramatically and took on a weightier, more traditionally representational manner. He has made many painted and printed portraits of friends and lovers, that are essentially domestic scenes of couples both straight and gay, as in this lithograph of the British expatriot writer Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, which was made after a painting of the couple in the same year, 1965. The very personal subject matter of Hockney's work is at once a tender testament to a friendship and an emblem of his own position as an openly gay man.

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns, painter, printmaker, and sculptor, is regarded, along with Robert Rauschenberg, one of the forerunners of Pop Art. Over his long career, Johns has developed and refined a repertoire of imagery based on "ready-made", ubiquitous objects and symbols -- flags, targets, numbers, letters, maps, and rulers, to name just his most typical. Regardless of the medium in which he works -- encaustic (hot wax with pigment), oil painting, collage, lithography, etching, and casting -- Johns's work, like Rauschenberg's, exhibits a lucid consistency of vision. (Examples of his masterful printmaking skills are exhibited here.)

Jasper Johns was born in 1930 in Augusta, GA and grew up in rural South Carolina. Between 1947 and 1948 he attended at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. In 1949 he attended commercial art school for two semesters. After serving in the Army, Johns moved back to New York in 1951. While working at a bookstore and painting at night, Johns met Rauschenberg in 1954, who convinced him to quit his day-job and to work together department store window displays to earn quick money. In1954 Johns painted his first "flag" and "target" paintings.

In 1958 Johns had his first solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, which still represents him. Three paintings from that exhibition were bought immediately by the Museum of Modern Art and in 1959 he was included in an exhibition there called Sixteen Americans. In 1964 Johns was given his first retrospective exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York. In 1966 he had a solo exhibition of drawings at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C. In 1970 the Philadelphia Museum of Art organized a retrospective exhibition of his prints.

In 1973 Johns bought a house near John Cage in Stony Point, NY and moved out of New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art organized a full-scale retrospective in 1977 that traveled to Europe. It was not until 1988 that Johns was awarded the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale.

Some of Johns's more recent major exhibitions include: The Drawings of Jasper Johns, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (traveled to Switzerland, England, and New York, 1990-92); Jasper Johns: 35 Years with Leo Castelli and Jasper Johns: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1997. In 1993 The Prints of Jasper Johns, 1960-1993: A Catalogue Raisonné was published.

JASPER JOHNS, Targets, 1978-80
Over his long career as painter, printmaker, and sculptor, Jasper Johns has developed and refined a repertoire of imagery based on "ready-made", ubiquitous objects and symbols -- flags, targets, numbers, letters, maps, and rulers. Along with Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns is regarded as a forerunner of Pop Art in America. Jasper Johns began making paintings of targets in 1954, shortly after he met Rauschenberg in New York. These etchings with aquatint date to 1978-80 (one has color, the other is drypoint). Johns added an upper register to his paintings, above the image of the target, comprised of a row of small boxes in which he placed fragments of body parts cast from his own body (those boxes are empty in these prints). Johns has said he chose the target because it was at once a simple geometric form (a series of concentric circles nestled upon one another), a conceptual abstraction, and a flat surface, devoid of illusion.

Johns does not privilege his painting practice over his printmaking. Indeed, he has been prolific in both areas. He carries through ideas from painting to print, however. For instance, the encaustic process he used in his early Target paintings (in which pigment was dissolved in hot wax and then painted on to the canvas surface) is "translated" conceptually in the dense mark-making covering the entire surface of the etching.

JASPER JOHNS, Land's End, 1978
It is often remarked that Jasper Johns's work is enigmatic, dense, and cryptic, at once literal and opaque. Johns gives us representations of common, identifiable objects, sometimes affixing an object to the surface. His compositions often juxtapose seemingly unrelated "ready-made" or "found" objects in a flattenend, shallow field lacking depth. In both the 1963 painting and the subsequent prints titled Land's End, Johns combines several seemingly unrelated everyday objects with personal and literary references: he stenciled the words "red," "yellow," and "blue" three times - once backwards and twice forwards (mirror images of each other), layering the smaller word over the larger; maintaining the word's legibility but making it difficult to read. Johns also reformulates motifs recycled from earlier works - the outline of a ruler at the center right edge, a measuring device that creates a circular outline at the top right, a surprisingly personal reference in the impression of Johns's own hand and a schematic outline of an arm. The entire surface has been filled with freer, more spontaneous marks and lines that do not seem to represent anything, but exist as counterpoints to the hard-edged lines that connote the objects just described.

Land's End was inspired by Jasper Johns's reading of the poetry of Hart Crane, who had committed suicide by drowning while on his honeymoon. It has been noted that Johns's work of the mid-1960s, when he first made the painting on which this print is based and other closely related works, was a time of personal desperation for the artist, which is born out in the literary references he chose. Curator Kirk Varnedoe has described the outstretched, elongated arm -- possibly the frantic gesture of a drowning victim- as "seem[ing] to reach with a thwarted desperation" and "evok[ing] the extreme reach of a solitary figure virtually crucified in space."

Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg is one of the most protean American artists of the 20th century. Inspired by French avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp and his Dadaist iconoclasm, Rauschenberg introduced radically new materials and startling combinations of objects plucked from his immediate surroundings. With these materials he made highly unorthodox paintings and hybrids he called "Combines." With his famous Erased DeKooning Drawing of 1949, in which the act of erasure and the mere trace of another artist's expression constituted the work of art, Rauschenberg registered his strong reaction against the introspection of Abstract Expressionism. He believes there is no difference between "art" and "life" - that anything is valid subject matter and material. As Rauschenberg once stated: "I don't want my personality to come out through the piece . . . I want my paintings to be reflections of life . . . your self-visualization is a reflection of your surroundings."

Rauschenberg sought to conjure new and unexpected associations for viewers. Many of his works are like puzzles that challenge the player to figure out how the various pieces are related, if at all. From the mid-1950s to the late 1960s, Rauschenberg was deeply involved with dance, theater, and performance art (a filmed excerpt of his 1966 performance "Linoleum" is on view here), in addition to his painting practice, which expanded to include silkscreening, especially photographs and appropriated images (transferred onto many kinds of surfaces) and lithography.

The vision underlying Rauschenberg's remarkable body of work is absolutely consistent: meaning is created through accidental, improvised, and even illogical juxtapositions and associations. One might say that Rauschenberg's life-long project as an artist has been to represent the "truth" of reality - that it is fractured, fleeting, and highly contingent.

Robert Rauschenberg was born in 1925 at Port Arthur, Texas. In 1942 he studied pharmacy briefly at the University of Texas before enlisting in the U.S. Marines. From 1947 to 1948 he was enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute, and in 1948 he attended the Académie Julian in Paris. He then studied at Black Mountain College, in North Carolina, a hotbed of avant-garde activity. He was married to fellow American artist Susan Weil, whom he had met in Paris, from 1950 to1952; they had a son in 1951. He spent time in New York City intermittently from 1949 to 1953, the year he moved into a studio in a downtown loft building. He had his first solo show at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York in 1951.

In 1954 he met Jasper Johns, with whom he was closely associated until 1961. They had studios one floor apart in the same building. Rauschenberg had his first exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery 1958, and regularly thereafter for more than 30 years. In 1962, he began silkscreening with photographs at the same time Andy Warhol began using stenciled silkscreens based on appropriated images. 1964 was a pivotal year for Rauschenberg: he won the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale, the event that catapulted him to art world fame. He has had touring retrospective exhibitions every decade since then.

Robert Rauschenberg lives on Captiva Island, Florida and in New York City.

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, Autobiography, 1968
The three panels of this large offset lithograph by Robert Rauschenberg from 1968 titled Autobiography are displayed vertically and exceed 16 feet in height. They were printed with the type of press used to make commercial billboards. The three panels are layered with seemingly disparate images that, on closer examination, are probably thematically grouped. The top panel features a composite X-ray of Rauschenberg's own body superimposed with the artist's astrological chart, suggesting both the present and the future. The center panel deals with the artist's past; at its center is a photosilkscreen of the artist as a two-year-old boy with his parents boating on a bayou near his home in Port Arthur, Texas. Surrounding this photosilkscreen is a labyrinthine oval of handwritten text narrating events in the artist's life. The lower panel seems to address artistic creativity and is dominated by an enlarged photograph of Rauschenberg during his 1963 performance "Pelican," in which he wears rollerskates and a parachute on a wooden armature harnessed to his back. Rauschenberg was one of several performers and he also choreographed this performance. This particular image suggests both movement and flight, which are themes carried through in Rauschenberg's art and life.

Autobiography's visual overlay of seemingly discrete and unrelated appropriated images is quintessential Rauschenberg, but the emphasis on personal or autobiographical subject matter is not. The vision underlying Rauschenberg's aesthetic has often been interpreted to mean that meaning itself is created through accidental, improvised, intuited, and even illogical juxtapositions and associations. In that sense, what Rauschenberg offers us in Autobiography are images he had at hand but they are also images of personal significance to him. Rauschenberg once stated: "I don't want my personality to come out through the piece . . . I want my [work] to be [a] reflection of life . . . your self-visualization is a reflection of your surroundings."

Andy Warhol

No artist is more identified with Pop Art than Andy Warhol. Critic Arthur Danto once called him "the nearest thing to a philosophical genius the history of art has produced." Warhol is best known for his use of visual images from comic books, newspapers, film stills, publicity photos, and advertisements. His use of the stencil silkscreen technique allowed him to appropriate images directly from their source, making minimal alterations during the process. The stencil (and later the photo) silkscreen process of producing nearly-identical multiples allowed Warhol to remove any trace of the artist's "hand" in the creative process and hence to question the authenticity and originality of a work of art.

Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg started employing silkscreening techniques independently in 1962. Lawrence Alloway (the critic who coined the term Pop Art) noted that: "the subject matter of Warhol's paintings is taken from the public realm, and clearly so. This is unlike Rauschenberg's use . . . which tend[s] to a porous interpretation . . . [Warhol's technique] is a brilliant fusion of the readymade with the flatness of painting."

Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, PA. He studied art at Carnegie Institute of Technology and immediately moved to New York City after graduation in 1949. Warhol began his career as a commercial artist whose clients included Glamour, Vogue, Seventeen, Harper's Bazaar, and Bergdorf Goodman. In 1956 Warhol started making paintings that selectively copied advertisements, newspaper headlines, and comics by hand. In 1962 Warhol discovered that the photo-silkscreen technique allowed him to transfer appropriated images directly to the surface rather than copying them by hand. In that same year he had several breakthrough solo exhibitions at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles and the Stable Gallery in New York. In 1963 he moved his studio to a loft building on the Upper East Side, which later became known as The Factory.

During his years at The Factory, an entourage of artists, poets, and actors in his paintings, prints, and films assisted Warhol. (His films served as raw material for his relatively few sculptures. For instance, several frames from his 1963 film Kiss were silkscreened on to Plexiglas, as in the multiple/sculpture Kiss [1966]). In the 1970s Warhol extended the scope of his artistic activity to book collaborations, graphic design (a special issue of the avant-garde publication Aspen Magazine from 1966 was designed by Warhol and is on view in this exhibition), and producing the magazine Interview (a sample with Liza Minelli on the cover is included).

During the 1970s, Warhol endorsed a range of companies (airlines and news magazines, for example) while continuing to make films as well as commissioned portraits of celebrities, aristocracy, and leaders. The silkscreen "portraits" of Chinese political leader Mao Zedong on view here were not commissioned but made from a leaflet on Mao's teachings circulating in the U.S. among Leftist and anti-war groups. During the late 1970s and 1980s Warhol was the subject of countless survey and retrospective exhibitions in the United States and Europe.

Andy Warhol died in February 1987 following gall-bladder surgery in New York City.

ANDY WARHOL, The Kiss, 1966
The Kiss by Andy Warhol appropriates a fragment of an earlier image (a handful of identical, repeated frames from one of Warhol's own films, also called The Kiss from 1963, which zeros in on and freezes the action of the mouths of a black man and a white woman kissing.) This work, which appeared as a "multiple" in a portfolio called "7 Objects in a Box," demonstrates Warhol's interest in recycling imagery, even from his own earlier work and also underscores the importance of his filmmaking, which took place alongside his other two-dimensional paintings and silkscreens. Warhol used the same approach as he had with his other silkscreened works: the film strip treated as a "found image," fragmented from the larger reel, and then enlarged into a screen that was then transferred to a piece of Plexiglas. The framing of the image, along with its dark and light contrast, tends to abstract the image in to a formally pleasing composition, downplaying what for the 1960s would have been considered the provocative content of interracial romance.

ANDY WARHOL, Mao, 1972
The silkscreen used to make this "portrait" of Mao Zedong was based on an official photograph of the Chinese leader that was ubiquitous in China at the time and readily available to Warhol from a leaflet on Mao's teachings circulating in the U.S. among Leftist and anti-war groups in the early 1970s. President Nixon had visited China in 1972, the year that Warhol first started to use Mao's image.

Warhol discovered the photo-silkscreen technique in 1962 and began using it widely in his art. This printmaking technique, in which a prepared stencil is adhered to a screen made of a very fine mesh, allowed Warhol to transfer an appropriated image, in this case a photograph that he had enlarged and had manufactured in to a screen, directly to the surface, rather than having to copy the image by hand.

In many of the different versions of Mao's image, Warhol drew, scribbled, and added painterly touches by hand over the brightly and multi-colored screened bust of Mao. This contrast of the quasi-mechanical silkscreened image and the free-hand gestures is a hallmark of Warhol's portraits of the 1970s. The seriousness and menacing presence of this icon of Communism is contrasted with the nonnaturalistic, clashing colors. Warhol's portrait of Mao seems to beg the question of whether Warhol was caricaturing Mao in these portraits, and thereby making some sort of political statement, or whether, as the artist once stated, "Since fashion is art now and Chinese is in fashion, I could make a lot of money. Mao would be really nutty [as a choice of image] . . . not to believe in it, it'd just be fashion." The unresolvable ambiguity of this image makes this one of Warhol's most brilliant portraits.

January 16 to March 11, 2001

Main Galleries
Komar & Melamid's American Dreams
The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to present a multimedia exhibition by the internationally renowned collaborative duo Komar & Melamid in its second-floor galleries from January 16 to March 11, 2001. Timed to coincide with the Presidents Birthday celebrations during the month of February, Russian émigré artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid have "curated" an exhibition exploring the cult of personality surrounding George Washington, the collaborator's "adopted father."

As recent American citizens, Russian emigré artists Komar & Melamid present their own collection of over 200 engravings, souvenirs, postcards, children's books, and illustrations of George Washington along with eight large allegorical paintings and one large silkscreen inspired by objects in the collection. The paintings draw parallels between the depiction of Washington and Vladimir Lenin, another revolutionary hero, political leader, and "founding father." Komar & Melamid invent witty pastiches of these iconographic similarities as well as that of a third revolutionary figure, the early 20th century avant-garde French artist Marcel Duchamp. Komar & Melamid conceived of and produced the stage sets for an opera, Naked Revolution, in which-- in the dream of a Russian immigrant taxi driver--Washington, Lenin, and Duchamp debate the nature of revolution and which of the three revolutions is superior. A videotape of Naked Revolution (performed at The Kitchen in New York City in 1998) and forty of the studies for the stage sets are also included in the exhibition.

Komar & Melamid,
Artists' collection of George
Washington Memorabilia

Vitaly Komar (b. 1943) and Alexander Melamid (b. 1945) began their collaborative endeavors while students at Moscow's Stroganov Institute of Art and Design, in the mid-1960s. After graduation, they joined the Youth Section of the Moscow Union of Artists, but were expelled from it in 1973, for what was considered their distorted representation of Soviet reality and their art's deviation from the principles of Socialist Realism. Viewing American overproduction of consumer goods as the equivalent to Soviet Russia's overproduction of ideology, they had initiated Sots Art (Sots being an abbreviation of "socialist," while "art" was taken from Pop Art). Like Pop Art, Sots Art employed parody, irony, and appropriation to acknowledge and critique the national hegemony. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, they became recognized as leading nonconformist/unofficial artists. Komar & Melamid came to the attention of the American art dealer Ronald Feldman, who first exhibited their work in his New York gallery in 1976. The artists moved to New York two years later and continue to live in New York. They became naturalized U.S. citizens in 1988. A portion of Komar & Melamid's American Dreams series was displayed at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York during the fall of 1997.

Komar & Melamid,
Washington, Lenin,
Duchamp, and Duncan
tempera and oil on canvas
60 x 60 inches
1996-7

Vitaly Komar will present a slide lecture on the theme of the exhibition during the opening reception on Thursday, January 18, 2001, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Komar's presentation will begin at 6 p.m. in the second-floor galleries.

An illustrated catalogue published by the Philadelphia Art Alliance accompanies the exhibition. It features: an introduction by Mark Thistlethwaite, the Kay and Velma Kimbell Chair of Art History at Texas Christian University in Houston; an essay on why artists collect by Russian contemporary art collector Neil Rector; and an interview with the artists by Philadelphia Art Alliance Curator Amy Ingrid Schlegel. A comprehensive chronology of Komar & Melamid's career is also included. The catalogue is available for purchase through the PAA.

First Floor Galleries:
On Collecting

"On Collecting" was conceived to dovetail with a concurrent exhibition in our second-floor galleries: Komar & Melamid's American Dreams. Internationally renowned Russian emigré artists Komar & Melamid have "curated" a multimedia exhibition exploring the cult of personality surrounding George Washington. This body of work, called American Dreams, began in 1985 and is based on a collection of memorabilia and "collectables" all dealing with the image of George Washington -- now numbering over 200 objects. "Everybody collects something," remark Komar & Melamid. "There are many different forms of collecting. It's one of the basic instincts of humanity."

For "On Collecting," the Philadelphia Art Alliance has teamed up with the Graduate Program in Museum Exhibition Planning and Design at the University of the Arts to explore questions sparked by Komar & Melamid's collection of George Washington memorabilia: Why do people collect what they collect? What does a particular type of collection say about the collector? About the culture that produced these objects? About our society?

Ten "collectors" -- ordinary people who have a passion for acquiring off-beat, unusual objects -- were selected from a larger group that responded to a call-for-submissions conducted by the University of the Arts' graduate program, directed by Jane Bedno. The student co-curators of this exhibition are: Tabitha Doby; Anna Hanusa; Tao Hao; Vanessa Hofstetter; Suryong Lee; and Tara Oldt. As you walk around the first-floor galleries, you will notice numbers that link a particular collection with a profile on its collector. These collectors are: Monica Abend; Alice Dommert; Ed Bedno; Barbara Korb; Jane Higgins; Carol Moore; Adrienne Stalek; Eric Sorlien; Sandy Sorlien; and Robert Van Stone.

Using interlocking ceramic elements, Ruth Borgenicht builds her sculptural forms by weaving individual pieces into a chain-mail pattern. Playing upon the association of chains as strong and impenetrable, the form belies the inherent fragility of the clay medium.

Borgenicht received her MFA from Rutgers University and is currently a resident artist at Hunter College, City University of New York, in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include: the Princeton Arts Council, Princeton, NJ; the Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Chester Springs Studio, Chester Springs, PA; and the Lorraine Kessler Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY.

Philadelphia Art Alliance Garden Courtyard:
Elizabeth McCue:
Dorothy Was Here

Featured at the Woodmere Art Museum's annual exhibition, Philadelphia Sculptors 2000, McCue's sculpture Dorothy was Here appropriates the ruby red slippers from the film The Wizard of Oz. McCue's transformation of Dorothy's slippers into a larger-than-life sculptural installation also transforms the Garden Courtyard, visible from Rittenhouse Street and from the restaurant Opus 251, into an exhibition space. In this case, the suprising scale transforms the shoes into an imaginative outdoor sculpture.

PAA Satellite Gallery:
Elizabeth McCue:
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Through the manipulation of scale and content, Elizabeth McCue has created a new installation based on the children's game of "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not." In this case, the implied activity of removing petals from a flower is suspended in the large scale sculpture designed to create an environment of pure fantasy. In He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not McCue continues a series of work explorating scale and content.

McCue received her B.A. at Vassar College and studied Asian Archeology at the University of London. She then studied painting at the Art Student's League and the New York Studio School, both in New York, NY. Several recent awards and grants include: Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Visual Fringe, Samuel S. Fels Fund (1998 and 1999); Merit Award from the New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts (1995); First Prize at the New Art of Pennsylvania Competition (1991); Award from the Pindar Gallery National Competition (1991); National Endowment for the Arts, Dance/Film/ Video Grants (1977 through 1983); and New York State Council on the Arts Grants (1977 through 1983).

November 11, 2000 to January 7, 2001

Main Gallery:
Jewels of Mind and Mentality:
Fifty Years of Avant-Garde Dutch Jewelry

Gijs Bakker
Collar and Bracelet
Stovepipe
1967

Part of an international tour, Jewels of Mind and Mentality’s only U.S. venue is at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. A total of 384 pieces of art for the body by 24 Dutch artists will be displayed in the Main (second-floor) Galleries and the Third Floor Gallery from November 11, 2000 through January 7, 2001.

An illustrated, color catalogue published by Museum Het Kruithuis is available for $35 at the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Jewels of Mind and Mentality has been organized by Museum Het Kruithuis, a contemporary art museum in s’-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. Most of the objects have been acquired for this travelling exhibition as well as for its permanent collection.

LAM deWolf
Untitled
Wood, textile
1981

Jewels of Mind and Mentality contextualizes the work of leading Dutch jewelry designers within the larger scope of international art movements such as Russian Constructivism, Pop Art and Body Art. These movements prompted Dutch artists to distance themselves from traditional "precious decoration" jewelry.

The earliest shift away from the model of artisan-as-goldsmith began in the early 1950s in the work of Esther Stuart-Hudig, Chris Steenbergen, and Archibald Dumbar. Their interests in form and concept rather than technical mastery were rooted in current Constructivist theory, in particular that of Russian sculptors Anton Pevsner and Naum Gabo, who emphasized the spatial relationships of their organic forms, which were made from new, synthetically produced materials such as plastic and Plexiglas.

A second generation of pioneering artists, later termed the "Dutch Smooth" group, extended these concepts by treating jewelry as something that could be produced serially. Common industrial materials such as aluminum and rubber were redefined to emphasize certain parts of the body. Hans Appenzeller, Gijs Bakker, and Emmy van Leersum’s "impersonal," serialized treatment of the ornament broke decisively with the notion of jewelry as a unique and precious object. The formal elements of design -- the most important components for the previous generation -- were pushed further and combined with the Dutch Smooth’s interest in conceptual framework.

Philip Sajet
Thornbulls
Black sulphurated
gold, diamant
1986

During the 1970s American artists Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman were influential figures for Dutch jewelry designers. Acconci’s and Nauman’s "body art" videotaped performances, in which they manipulated their own bodies for the camera, underscored the message that, for Dutch designers, the body was inseparable from the meaning of the object designed for it. Artists like Philip Sajet, Herman Hermsen, and Dinie Besems created jewelry that was meant to act upon the body rather than to have the body act a structural support for the object. The work was to be an "envelope" for the active viewer, who transformed his/her body into an image by inserting it into the space encompassed by the work of art. At the same time, taking their cue from Pop Art and its embrace of mass culture, Dutch designers began incorporating Readymade (found) objects and everyday materials into their work. Maria Hees, for example, used hairbrushes and other functional objects to create brooches.

Reaction against the influential "Dutch Smooth" group came in 1980s when a sculptural approach to one-of-a-kind works became the predominant mode of working. Artists such as Onno Boekhoudt, Ruudt Peters, Marion Herbst, and LAM de Wolf emphasized the need for one-of-a-kind objects that expressed the artist’s sensibility. This renewed emphasis on originality was accompanied by an interest in experimenting with an unorthodox treatment of materials. LAM de Wolf, for instance, draped a series of painted silk chains over the wearer’s back. Innovation became the criteria for a new generation of artists.

First Floor Galleries: Painting "From the Model"
Paul Matthews: Friends and Relations

Alex Kanevsky,
Consultant S.
2000

Most artists begin their training by drawing and painting from a live model. Painters Paul Matthews and Alex Kanevsky move beyond the foundations of portrait painting -- how does light and shadow effect the painter's perception of objects and choice of color? - each from his own perfectionist's stand-point. While Matthews's and Kanevsky's approaches to portraiture are superficially similar, their end results offer an instructive study in contrasts.

While Kanevsky invites ambiguity into his small-scale compositions by basing them on digital photographs, sometimes of the subject in motion, and by deliberately using imperfect lighting conditions, Matthews, who also begins with a photographic source, delights in representing the human form with cool, even lighting and excruciating detail.

Kanevsky presents a body of new work he calls "overwhelmed portraiture" - each one by one foot in scale of people he has encountered during the summer of 2000. He describes the project as follows: "Doing multiple portraits in a relatively short period of time will derail a natural tendency to try to bring every painting to a good end. I will have to deal with a mounting number of unresolved conflicts. Hopefully, some will be spectacular failures. An unpredictable and exciting journey."

Paul Mathews
Jerry talking
1990

Matthews has executed many commissioned portraits over the years, though he prefers to do uncommissioned portraits of family and friends. The dilemma of portrait painting for him is "an unreasonable desire to capture the actual person on canvas" -- and the impossibility of actually doing so. "Some fusion of the artist's and sitter's personality comes through in the attempt, though; something that never existed before," the artist states. Matthews admits that his tendency is "always toward exaggeration and caricature... my true delight is to mimic, to mock, to imitate. So when I try for a likeness I miss; but when I go for the jugular it comes naturally."

Kanevsky, who is originally from Russia, attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and was a 1997 Pew Fellowship recipient. Matthews, who lives in Lambertville, NJ, and Keene, NY, has exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York and throughout the East Coast for the past 36 years; he is a graduate of Cooper Union in New York.

September 9 to November 1, 2000

Main Galleries

PICTURA LUCIDA
This is an exhibition of "lucid pictures." The five artists included in Pictura Lucida -- Diane Burko, Meg Saligman, Anda Dubinskis, Charlotte A. Schatz, and Linda Stojak -- represent the Established Artist Recipients of The Leeway Foundation's Grants in Painting for the year 2000. Three meanings of the word "lucid" connect the disparate practices of these five painters. Clarity and intelligibility of form aids viewers' comprehension. "Lucida," meaning "light," as a painter's tool, helps define form. And luminosity--the character of radiant lightacts as a representational device and pictorial quality.

The invented term "pictura lucida" is taken from a pre-photographic drawing instrument known as the camera lucida, a cousin to the camera obscura and a forerunner of the slide projector. The camera lucida aided artists in drawing an object or a landscape too vast for the eye to encompass at once without moving the head. The artist looked through a small, split lens so that, on one half, natural light reflected off an angled mirror on to a drawing surface below, and on the other half, the distant object was magnified. Pictura Lucida also consciously recalls French theoretician Roland Barthes's 1980 classic book Camera Lucida, in which he metaphorically invokes the instrument's ability to "shed light" on the subject of photography by tracing reflections. Pictura Lucida is employed here in a similar, overarching manner.

The paintings in this exhibition use various strategies of drawing that relate to the function of the camera lucida. Both Diane Burko and Meg Saligman compose with the aid of a slide projector in tracing the outlines of forms in order to achieve accuracy in perspective and scale across a large surface. This practice underscores the importance of reflected light and drawing as well as of photographic sources in the production of their paintings. Legible, schematically-rendered figures in the work of Anda Dubinskis and Linda Stojak demonstrate the importance of drawing and heavy line to these artists in a manner different from Burko's and Saligman's use of line as underdrawing. Dubinskis's and Stojak's figurative compositions elicit intrigue precisely because their forms are legible yet their implicitly narrative meaning remains enigmatic. As for light as a pictorial quality, Charlotte A. Schatz's expressionist industrial landscapes feature clearly defined, geometric forms and a tonality that appears infused with a personalized, non-naturalistic luminosity. And Burko's sublime landscapes of volcanic eruptions come as close as one can imagine to the pictorial representation of fiery, incandescent light.

Pictura Lucida marks the third occasion that the Philadelphia Art Alliance has hosted The Leeway Foundation's awardees in the visual arts. Since its founding in 1993, The Leeway Foundation has awarded grants to living women artists over the age of 20 who reside in the Philadelphia five-county area. In addition to the five artists honored in Pictura Lucida, works by seven painters who are recipients of the Emerging Artist awards are on view during the month of October at Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia.

A panel of jurors appointed by The Leeway Foundation selected the five artists in Pictura Lucida. Those jurors were: Maria Dominguez, a painter living in New York City; Kathryn Kanjo, director of ArtPace, a Foundation for Contemporary Art in San Antonio, TX; Sara Becker, Libby Harwitz, and Charlene Longnecker, both trustees of The Leeway Foundation; and Linda Lee Alter, president of the Foundation. Philadelphia Art Alliance curator Amy Ingrid Schlegel selected the works on view and devised the exhibition concept and installation. Curatorial assistant Melissa Caldwell ably assisted in the production of this brochure, the wall labels, and press release. June O'Neill, executive director, and River Trappler, program coordinator, of The Leeway Foundation were enormously helpful in facilitating the relay of information and other logistical details. Founder Linda Lee Alter, as always, was a committed and enthusiastic supporter of the Foundation's awardees and of the Art Alliance. Finally, Joan Wetmore, former director of Nexus Gallery, was a congenial collaborator. The Philadelphia Art Alliance also wishes to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Stephen Haller, founding director of the Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, and cooperation of Sueyen Locks, director of Locks Gallery, Philadelphia.

Amy Ingrid Schlegel, curator, Philadelphia Art Alliance

Diane Burko

Diane Burko,
Kilauea's Overlfow, Hawaii(1968)
oil on canvas
60 x 84
2000

Diane Burko presents new work from a series on Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. These panoramic views of volcanic eruptions signal a departure from the naturalistic landscape painting for which she is well known. Burko asserts that "the representation of the volcano has enabled me . . . to explore an unknown palette. I have backed my naturalism into a conversation with abstraction." The intense, luminescent quality of this palette of unadulterated reds, oranges, yellows, and whites compliments her effort to convey the vastness and power of nature and her accompanying sense of awe. Burko's newest work evinces a contemporary incarnation of the Sublime tradition in landscape painting.

"The world's landscape has stimulated, challenged, and inspired me for over thirty years," Burko explains. "How the scale of the painting transforms discrete visual experiences into a image that becomes greater than any of its parts has been a constant preoccupation of mine. My current series concerns the volcano in all its manifestations. I'm interested in capturing molten lava flows, eruptions of fire and ash, as well as the pyroclastic deposits of magma, cinders, and pumice fragments that accumulate around the craters and calderas of dormant volcanoes. In 1998, I began visiting volcanoes in Costa Rica and Alaska. I am now focused on the activity of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. After exploring it, I plan to journey to Iceland, southern Italy, and New Zealand."

Burko received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and is a full professor at the Community College of Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the Bessie Berman Grant as well as several other awards, including: The Bellagio Study and Conference Center Residency from the Rockefeller Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship; and The Lila Acheson Wallace Foundation Residency in Giverny, France. Most recently, the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia awarded Burko its One Percent Public Art Commission Award to produce a 360-degree mural cycle entitled Wissahickon Reflections at the Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia. Burko is represented by Locks Gallery, Philadelphia.

Meg Saligman

Meg Saligman,
Once in a Millennium Moon
digital design for mural in Shrevesport, Louisiana
actual mural size 25,000 sq. ft. 1999

A muralist whose work can be seen in various locations throughout Philadelphia and other cities, Meg Saligman often treats contemporary people from a specific community as allegorical figures in her complex, collage-like compositions. She is currently completing a mural entitled Once In a Millennium Moon in Shrevesport, Louisiana. The murals' digital design is being shown for the first time along with photographs of the installation in progress. "At 25,000 square feet," the artist explains, "this painting will be the largest publicly funded mural in the country. The design is a gigantic Shrevesport celebration of life cycles. Everything seen in the mural is from the physical or psychological worlds of this northern Louisiana community. All the figures seen are actual citizens of Shrevesport ranging in age from three months to eighty-six years. (They will appear 20 to 100 feet in height.) Water flows through the design, as it does the city. It spills into urns decorated with the carvings from local cemeteries. The water then pours onto a baby symbolizing the cycle of death and birth . . . Natural elements are a huge design element because they are so important in the daily life and cycles of the city." Once in a Millennium Moon is administered and sponsored by the Shrevesport Regional Arts Council. It is part the initiative Artists Create for the Millennium, sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Also featured in the exhibition are a CD-rom on the making of Philadelphia Muses, located at 13th and Locust Streets, and slide projections documenting the creative and production processes of Common Threads, located at Broad and Spring Garden Streets.

After receiving her bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Saligman moved to Philadelphia where she began painting murals for the Anti-Graffiti Network, now the Mural Arts Program at the City's Department of Parks and Recreation, with which she is still involved. She has been honored with several prestigious awards, including: The Leeway Grant for Excellence; The National Endowment for the Arts in 1995, 1996, and 1999; and the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1993.

Anda Dubinskis

Anda Dubinskis,
Untitled
oil on canvas
60 x 72 in.
2000

Anda Dubinkis's multi-paneled compositions (which are inspired by early Renaissance altars) juxtapose, and sometimes overlay, figure and plant studies. Parallels are implicitly suggested between the two, both of which are drawn from life, and often at the same scale. The ambiguous narratives and dissonant color schemes seem to conceptualize both individual psychological states of mind and broader social interactions. Dubinskis states that: "My paintings involve a narrative, often juxtaposing several images. Recently, I have become more involved in evoking a psychological state. Various plant forms are interspersed with the figures. These weeds can be perceived as insidious invaders, but they also serve as a metaphor for tenacity and perseverance."

Anda Dubinskis received her bachelor's degree from Cooper Union in New York City and her master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently an adjunct professor at Beaver College and has taught at Moore College of Art and Design, the Tyler School of Art (Temple University), and Kutztown University. Dubinskis has received the Leeway Grant for Achievement, and other notable awards, including: The National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship in 1990 and 1992; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in 1995 and 1998; and the MacDowell Colony Fellowship in 1987.

Charlotte A. Schatz,
Henry Weinhard Brewery#1
acrylic on canvas
52 x 39-1/2 in.
2000

Charlotte A. Schatz depicts abandoned industrial buildings in urban surroundings, but not in a documentary way. Inspired by French Fauvism, Russian Constructivism, and American Precisionism, Schatz focuses on the formal and geometric configurations of a specific industrial site, transforming the space into an expressionist landscape through her manipulation of color and composition. She presents a selection of paintings from this body of work completed during the last two years. Schatz states: "This body of work reflects my formal, aesthetic, and social concerns. Since 1996, I've been involved in an investigation of abandoned buildings in our urban environment; remnants of industrialism in North Philadelphia, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Portland, Oregon. My aim is to provoke a reaction to the geometry of these beautiful, empty buildings, sans people, in a seemingly unreal space using subjectively chosen color. I use a fauvist palette to refer back to the early times when these structures were new and glorious, full of life and industry."

Schatz received her bachelor's degree from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and has since pursued graduate studies at Tyler, Skidmore College, Alliance Française, and Drexel University. In 1998 she retired as professor of fine arts at Bucks County Community College, Newtown, PA. Schatz has received the Leeway Award for Achievement.

Linda Stojak

Linda Stohjak,
Untitled
oil on canvas
30 x 30 in.
2000

Linda Stojak's quasi-representational paintings are characterized by androgynous figures enigmatically suspended in voids of saturated color. Her spare compositions may represent a liminal state, in which her figures seem poised on the threshold of action yet remain immobile, perhaps representing a condition of emotional paralysis. Stojak builds her painterly surfaces and schematically delineated forms, until recently, solely with a palette knife on canvases covered with a grid of paper; she now also occasionally uses very fine brushes. Stojak's work has both autobiographical and literary ties; in particular, to her Polish-Catholic upbringing, her father's recent death, and the adoption of a Chinese toddler, as well as to the angst-ridden poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, all of which weigh heavily in the palpable emotional undercurrent of her recent work.

Stojak states: "In painting I examine my own life. Through the specifics of my life, I hope to describe something about the nature of everyone's life. These paintings are about being born, separation, touching, breathing, dying, loss, time, silence, waiting. I want to be concise stylistically, to keep images simple, suggestively spare and repetitive. I emphasize their emotional complexity through the painting process itself. For instance, I might convey an underlying tension by combining a static, restrained image with a layered, expressive surface. I want to describe and evoke the anxiety that inevitably exists in living."

Stojak holds a MFA from the Pratt Institute of Art and Design in New York and was awarded the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Painting in 1996. She has now received the Leeway Grant for Achievement. Stojak is represented by the Stephen Haller Gallery, New York.

Projects by 1999 Pew Fellows
1999 Pew Fellows Kevin Kautenburger and Nicholas Kripal were invited to respond to the Philadelphia Art Alliance's first-floor galleries in siting their most current work made during their Fellowships. Both artists are sacred, in Kripal's case, and domestic in Kautenburger's-and have created new installations for this joint exhibition that play off the interior architectural features of the Art Alliance Galleries.

Gallery A:
Kevin Kautenburger
Pollenized Light/New Work

Kevin Kautenburger's speciality is sculpture that closely resembles custom-made furniture and furnishings. His designs draw inspiration from the quiet elegance of Shaker design as well as from the studied simplicity and meditative quality of Asian domestic interiors. Kautenburger draws from both eastern and western domestic traditions in creating "an installation for the daydreamer" in a gallery space that was originally used as a formal reception room next to the main entrance by the owners of the Wetherill Mansion, now the Philadelphia Art Alliance building. His goal is for the installation to "almost recede into the architecture of the room."
Kautenburger,
Pollen Shutter

Kautenburger,
Pollen Shutter

The dominant work establishing the ambience of Kautenburger's installation is Pollen Shutters, mounted on the interior of the gallery's two pairs of windows. Pollen (a trademark material for Kautenburger) collected from the artist's own beehives is encased between glass and mirror slats in wooden frames. The slats face upward, simultaneously emitting natural light on to the gallery floor and reflecting the dimensions and decorative molding of the ceiling. The operable shutters disperse "pollenized light" through the space of the room. "It is my hope that the dusting of pollen together with the reflection of light will emit a soft glow throughout this room," Kautenburger says. "This should be a room heightened with sensations in which to simply sit."

Kautenburger treats the room as an artist's study. He situates Amber Rocker, a functional sculpture emulating an adult-size rocking chair but cast in golden amber-colored resin, in one corner of the room. In Side Table/Cricket Box a diminutive, red cedar box with a flip up lid rests against a second wooden panel framing an oval mirror coated in resin. The box resembles the face of an acoustic guitar, with a small, screened circular opening, and contains common house crickets. Another piece inviting literal and metaphorical reflection is Dry Basin , a sculpture made of poplar, mirrors, pollen, and beeswax, placed in a corner opposite Amber Rocker. We are invited to look down in to the waist-high "basin" to gaze at our pollen- speckled reflection. A final object of contemplation, Semé/Ant Colony --an ant colony in the form of a Chinese scholar's table-top ornament (and filled with sand)--appears on the fireplace mantle.

The impulse uniting Kautenburger's new work stems from his notion of the artist as a daydreamer. The artist's "nonproductive" studio activity is gauged by the slow passage of time-marked by the activity of the any colony, the crickets' intermittent singing, and the natural light moving across the room--as well as the fugitive quality of the materials used (pollen, resin, mirrors, glass, sand, ants, crickets). This ruse of the daydreamer's studio-the installation as an imaginary room for meditation and contemplation--is belied by the meticulous craftsmanship of the furniture-like sculpture and the deliberately meditative function of each object in the room. Kautenburger asks visitors to daydream, if only for a moment, and to draw their own conclusions from the sensations experienced in his installation/environment.

Amy Ingrid Schlegel, curator, Philadelphia Art Alliance

The artist wishes to thank the Pew Fellowships in the Arts for its support in the development of this installation.

Gallery B:
Nicholas Kripal
Santo Spirito: An Installation Inspired by Brunelleschi

Nicholas,
Santo Spirito
3x6
2000

Sculptor Nicholas Kripal's installation trinity consists of three interrelated works all based on the form of the Italian Renaissance Basilica Santo Spirito which have been sited to echo the gallery's tripartite window configuration. Kripal casts in concrete the interior volume of Santo Spirito (designed by Brunelleschi in 1434), but on a miniaturized scale, eighteen times. For Santo Spirito 3 x 6, he has situated the identical white forms (each 13 x 32 x 6 in.) in six groupings, each of three elements, which form an overall pattern resembling fractal geometry displayed on a low platform.

Although he had visited the church years ago, Kripal's interest in Santo Spirito began with Brunelleschi's original design for the floor plan. His predominately formal interest then led him to extrapolate from an axonometric (volumetric) projection of the Florentine church, which is itself a reconstruction of the original design. He built a Styrofoam model twice the scale of the volumetric drawing, altering the actual flat roof and overall cruciform shape. Kripal believed a barrel vaulted ceiling and rounded side walls better emphasized the organic feeling present in Brunelleschi's design. The next step involved using this model to make a rubber mold for the concrete casts as well as to cast Ghost, the negative volume of Santo Spirito, also in concrete. Suspended from the ceiling, above visitors' heads, Ghost inverts the viewing relationship of Santo Spirito 3 x 6. The final element of Kripal's installation, a digital blueprint titled Interstitial Plan, synthesizes the positive and negative volumes of Santo Spirito and Ghost. "Since 1998 I have been creating a series of sculptures influenced by sacred architecture," Kripal says. "In particular, I have been interested in the visual impact of sacred spaces and the expression of religious iconography via architectural form. The three pieces in this installation are all variations on a theme . . . Together these pieces are layered with references generated by my initial observations, subsequent research, and studio process. It is my hope that within the interplay of these references each viewer will find personal meaning."

Nicholas Kripal,
Ghost
Installation View
1999-2000

In this installation, Kripal literally "makes concrete" the ethereal volume of sacred space. By reducing the scale so drastically, though, and by repeatedly casting the same element, and clustering the group in a highly formalized composition elevated slightly above the floor, Kripal invites us to speculate on the effects his transformations have on the meaning and manifestation of spirituality in the physical realm.

Amy Ingrid Schlegel, curator, Philadelphia Art Alliance

The artist wishes to thank: The Pew Fellowships in the Arts; Temple University's Grant-in-Aid of Research; Shane and Julie Stratton; Benjamin Schulman; and Daniel Cutrone.

Third Floor
Drawings by Julie Bokat
Although Julie Bokat is known for her works in oil, she will present some of her most recent drawings in beeswax and charcoal. Resembling the microscopic interior of an unspecified organic form, the delicate contours of her drawings appear suspended by carefully applied layers of beeswax.

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 14, 5 to 8 p.m.

Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery
210 Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor
Paul Santoleri: Works on Paper (on view through January 7, 2001)
Opening reception: Thursday, September 14, 5 to 8 p.m.; Art Alliance Building.

June 28 to September 3, 2000

Main Galleries
Fin de Siecle: Philadelphia 2000

This exhibition plays upon the notion of "fin de siècle": the mood characterizing the transition from one century to another. Contemporary images of the City of Philadelphia are presented together with postcards of Philadelphia landmark buildings made between 1904 and 1914. Recent photographs by Philadelphia-based artists Linda Adlestein, Vincent David Feldman, and Ron Tarver all use techniques or employ effects characteristic of the late19th- and early-20th centuries. In their evocations of the past, these photographers also chronicle our transition into the 21st century, while the postcards are benchmarks of the City's appearance nearly a century ago.

If there is a muse informing the premise of this exhibition, then it is French photographer Eugène Atget (1857-1927). From 1898 until his death, Atget charted the dramatic urban transformations then taking place in Paris. He captured poignant, tell-tale signs of the city's changing face -- its outdoor cafés, public parks, old trees, narrow, historic streets, working-class homes, and outmoded factories -- in a manner that was simultaneously documentary, sentimental, and cautionary. Atget recorded his photographic inventory of "old Paris" during the last phase of Baron Georges Hausmann's plan of radically redesigning the Parisian cityscape.

Because he photographed early in the morning, a quiet, mournful ambience pervades Atget's people-less photographs. Ron Tarver aims to capture something similar - what he describes as "the soul of the city" - but by working at night. In contrast to Tarver's soft-focus, poetic black-and-white images, Vincent David Feldman artfully documents, in crisp detail, civic buildings in decline, twice removed from their original function, as well as ones that have been razed since the photograph was taken; Feldman soberly updates Atget's project in a different context. Linda Adlestein's hand-painted, layered photographs share the romance of Atget's vision, though thankfully the Philadelphia landmarks on which she focuses are not endangered.

From the collection of Harvey Elfenstein, the images represented in these early postcards of Philadelphia are reminders of the City's grandeur and bustle before World War I and offer historic parallels to the "new Paris" with which Atget was confronted.

Linda Adelstein,
Pennsylvania Acedemy of Fine Arts,
1999

Linda Adlestein manipulates her large-scale photographs to suggest a Romantic sensibility and a fascination with ruins. She superimposes two negatives -- one of a Philadelphia architecutral landmark, the other typically of a wall or some other textured surfaceóand turns the orientation of the latter, rendering it a ghost-like presence. She prints the layered photograph with sepia, commonly used by photographers at the turn of the 20th century. She then hand-tints the final image with a muted palette of colors, alluding eloquently to the process of decay and the passage of time. Adlestein's images in this exhibition include: Memorial Hall; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Winter, Rittenhouse Square; and City Hall. Adlestein's photographs are courtesy Schmidt/Dean Gallery, Philadelphia.

Adlestein's work has been exhibited in Kyoto, Paris, Florence, and thoughout the East Coast. Her portfolio "Italia" was published in Spiral Magazine and was aired on cable television in New York. She has received several grants such as the La Napoule Art Foundation Artists' Residency Program Grant and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship.

Vincent David Feldman,
Old Garrick Theater, 1995

Vincent David Feldman uses a view camera to photograph late 19th- and early 20th-century landmark buildings and other civic sites that have fallen from grace. The view camera allows him to photograph an entire facade while also capturing minute architectural details, graffiti, and other signs of distress and retrofitting. Sometimes Feldman focuses on only a part of a building's façade, other times he includes more of the contemporary context and in doing so suggests the lost glory of these sites, which are, for him, more animated once they have been abandoned. Feldman's photographs are courtesy of the artist.

Feldman received his MFA in 1997 from Tyler University and is currently an adjunct professor of photography and Drexel University. He has also taught photography at Bucks County Community College and Tyler University. In 1999, Feldman won first prize at the City Paper Photography Competition and has had several solo exhibitions, most recently at Nihonbashi in Tokyo and at the Paley Design Center at Philadelphia University.

Ron Tarver,
Rows, 2000

Ron Tarver's approach to photography consciously recalls the soft-focus aesthetic of the Photo Secessionists, artists active in the early decades of the 20th century who argued for photography's status as a fine art medium. Tarver photographs all manners of buildings, but for this exhibition he presents several recent images of off-the-beaten-track working- and middle-class dwellings that are both typical and atypical of Philadelphia. He develops his often deliberately blurry prints with coffee to achieve a patina effect. Tarver's works are courtesy of the artist and the Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia.

Tarver is a staff photographer at The Philadelphia Inquirer and is the founder and director of PhotoSession, an annual photography conference in Philadelphia. Recent solo exhibitions include: Eastern State College; the Philadelphia Art Alliance; the Samuel S. Fleisher Memorial; and Beaver College. Tarver has been awarded the National Newspaper Magazine Society Award and the National Press Photographers Association Award, among several other honors.

May 13 - June 25, 2000

Main Galleries
Performance/Process/Repetition: Works by Sandra Camomile, Gabrielle Kanter, and Margo Schriber
The Philadelphia Art Alliance is pleased to present the recent work of three Philadelphia area artists -- Sandra Camomile, Gabrielle Kanter, and Margo Schriber - that expands generally accepted notions of what "sculpture" is. Each artist has a distinctive approach to materials, metaphor, and meaning that compliment one another. The subjects addressed by Camomile's, Kanter's, and Schriber's work range from the (female) body to domesticity to the creative process itself, while their intradisciplinary approach to art making involves the merging of: sculpture and performance; sculpture and drawing; ceramics, sculpture, and installation; and video and performance.

First Floor: Two Views on Recycling
John Willis: Recycled Realities: Found Still Life Photographs
John Willis presents part of a continuing series of "found still life photographs" entitled Recycled Realities. These toned and bleached gelatin silver prints were photographed at a paper recycling mill in northern Massachusetts, near the artist's home in southern Vermont. John Willis is professor of photography at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT..

Michael Singer: Making Dead Land Live: The Phoenix, AZ Transfer and Recycling Center
The Art Alliance presents the pioneering, award-winning Transfer and Recycling Center of Phoenix, Arizona (19891993), a project designed and led by artists Michael Singer and Linnea Glatt. Herbert Muschamp of The New York Times called the "vaguely Mayan" architectural design "an operating theater for environmental therapy." These photographs document a radical alternative to conventional public art commissions and offer a new vision of how artists can rethink the planning and design process for recycling facilities and recycling in other industries.

Third Floor
Closely Seen: Recent Photographs by John L. Newell
Newell describes his toned gelatin silver prints as "an exploration of the consubstantiality of organic objects." His photographs evoke a sense of pattern and abstraction in commonplace and objects found in nature. Newell is a selftrained photographer who resides in Prospect Park, PA and teaches at Delaware Community College. Newell is an Artist Member of the Art Alliance.

Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery
210 Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor
Ma Hanzhang: Selected Scroll Paintings (extended)Considered one of the masters of traditional painting in the People's Republic of China, Ma Hanzhang presents large-scale scroll paintings that combine the four basic elements in traditional Chinese painting -- poem, calligraphy, painting, and seal - with highly innovative brushwork.

March 27 - May 7, 2000

Main Galleries
The Prints of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again
Presented in conjunction with The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, and PrideFest America, Philadelphia, PA. The exhibition is a survey of screenprints and lithographs by Andy Warhol produced between 1964 and 1987.
www.pridefestamerica.com

First Floor
Maritza Ranero: Recent Painting
Raneros conceptual paintings operate as substitutes for memories of physical experiences. As Ranero has stated: "The pleasure or pain of physical experience colors memory and produces sentimentality. . . [My paintings are] real/feigned experience as viewed through the aqueous humor of my imagination.

Laura Yang: Oils On Paper
Yang brings her skills as colorist to her large abstract paintings, retaining their sense of pure detachment by identifing them through Roman Numerals. Her works also allude to the poet LiPo, who lived in Tang Dynasty China (A.D. 701-762). In manner similiar to LiPo, Yang describes her paintings as "ethereal in spirit, yet grounded in the everyday experience we all share."

Third Floor
Nancy Sophy: Works on Paper
Penetrating the surface of the paper with unpigmented oils, Sophy attempts to acheive a perfect union between the action of marking and the stability of the blank surface. She describes this fusion as one of "mak[ing] the intangible, tangible and the unrecordable, recordable."

Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery
210 Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor
Ma Han Zhang: Scroll Paintings Considered one of the masters of traditional painting in the People's Republic of China, Ma Han Zhang will be presenting some of his most recent works that combine the four basic elements in traditional Chinese painting: poem, calligraphy, painting and seal. He will also give a lecture on March 28 at 11:30 a.m. in the CBS Auditorium at the University of the Arts.

February 8 to March 19, 2000

Main Galleries:
You Can't Go Home Again: The Art of Exile
Presents six artists whose work is informed by their choice or compulsion to immigrate to the United States. Included in the exhibition are: Ilya Kabakov; Wlodzimierz Ksaizek; Dinh Q. Lê; Tanja Softic´; Irene Sosa; Ana Tiscornia. Curated by Amy Ingrid Schlegel.

First Floor:
Charles Le Clair: Homages to Cézanne, de Chirico and Others
The Art Alliance is honored to present LeClair's most recent work in oil and watercolor.

Daniel Heyman: Recent Work
Characterizations of Daniel Heyman's work have ranged from whimiscal to intellectual to tragic. His gouaches on paper recall familiar motifs and formal styles from art history, yet the actual subject matter seems to allude to recent local and national events.

Third Floor:
René J. Marquez: Mga Askal (Native Bred)
Presented at the Art Alliance will be Marquez's most recent drawings as well as his mixed media artist's books, which he has characterized as 'the definitive vehicle of learning [which] disrupt[s] both the delicacy and authority of 'historical artifact'."

Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery
210 Rittenhouse Square, Third Floor
Judith Barbour Osbourne: Chosen Silence
The Art Alliance has extended the Rittenhouse Satellite Gallery exhibition of scroll and works on paper by Judith Barbour Osborne. Inspired by poets such as Jelaluddin Rumi and Wallace Stevens, Osbourne has described her work as "...visual traces of non-visual realities, such as temporal, emotional and spatial relationships."

Antonio Puri: Outside the Mandala December 16, 2005 to January 29, 2006 First Floor Galleries

Tadashi Moriyama: Recent Works

Antonio Puri: Outside the Mandala
December 16, 2005 to January 29, 2006
First Floor Galleries